Cat's Paw (29 page)

What were Mum and Dad doing right now? Wandering around their separate homes, too distraught to go near their beds? In sudden horror he found he’d forgotten what they looked like. When he
tried to picture their faces he saw two terrifying egg-like blanks.

His tongue kept revisiting his agonising tooth, and his eyes kept returning to Fisher. Every time he saw the same still shadow, crouched atop the corner of the roof.

A pounding headache competed with the cracked tooth. What exactly was concussion? He wriggled to scratch an itch on his back and noticed that his bonds felt looser. It struck him that the smooth
shock tube was quite bad at holding knots. He blew out all his breath and fidgeted some more. One knot unravelled.

‘Stop doing that.’ Fisher was there beside him. Ben forgot how to breathe.

‘I count sixteen knots,’ said Fisher. ‘If any more come undone, Thomas will light you.’

‘Certainly, yes,’ said Thomas.

Ben’s lungs stayed empty.

‘I can hear your mind speaking,’ said Fisher. ‘It is speaking, isn’t it? Thomas won’t do it. Thomas is my friend. He won’t let the cords crush me. I can hear
your mind, Ben. And it fibs.’

His chest began to pound.

‘He will do it. Hannah will do it. They pray to me for the chance to do it.’

‘Please, Martin.’ His guards spoke together. ‘Please let us do it.’

‘Hush.’ Fisher sniffed the air. He cocked his head and his huge bony hands clenched into fists. He emitted a chainsaw growl.

‘He is coming.’

Ben breathed, like a drowning man pulled into the air.

‘Yusuf?’

Tiffany tiptoed through the ninth floor. Her feet picked their way between discarded tools.

‘Cecile?’

She pushed aside cables that dangled in her face, edging round corners packed with padding. Harsh drafts blew through every room, rinsing away the polecats’ scent.

‘Susie? Geoff?’

Her Mau whiskers buzzed. Vibrations swarmed towards her through the air and floor. Fast feet, lots of them, rushing ever closer on a wave of raucous voices. She had to escape.

‘Here!’ someone hissed. Geoff’s face in a window made her jump.

‘Climb out, quick.’

Geoff was clinging to the glossy banner that cloaked the outer wall, framed by the white D of
Demolition
. She swung herself out to join him as polecats stormed past the room where
she’d been hiding.

‘That was a narrow squeak.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘You okay?’

She nodded. The banner billowed in the wind, making the gleaming city sway.

Geoff looked anxious. ‘Where’s Felicity?’

‘Oh, don’t ask. Did you catch the others?’

He thinned his lips.

‘Well? Did you?’

‘They had the hunting frenzy. Nothing I could do. When a cat’s chasing prey you can’t just shout
stop
.’

‘But–’ Her hands slipped. She desperately scrabbled. Geoff grabbed the scruff of her pashki kit.

‘Whoa. Your claws can’t cope with all this hanging around. Let’s find a safer spot.’

Heart ka-chunking, Tiffany tried to re-summon her Mau claws. She used them so often she forgot they weren’t real, weren’t solid, but just a spooky sort of energy at the fingertips.
Closing her eyes she flicked through the rainbow of catras in turn, Ptep, Mandira, Kelotaukhon, Parda, Oshtis and Ailur, until the skin tingled beneath her nails. Geoff was right – she
couldn’t sustain such concentration much longer than ten seconds. She stared at him in awe: he’d been climbing on his own claws for minutes.

‘Here’s comfy enough.’ He helped her to the nearest balcony and she fell into it with relief. He sat on the edge dangling his feet.

‘I didn’t count on losing everyone like that,’ he said. ‘We’re a bit stuffed.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t face Fisher and his gang alone.’

‘But you’re not. Alone, I mean.’

‘Nor am I keen on watching Fisher gut you.’

Tiffany felt sick. Geoff cracked his knuckles.

‘We may need Plan B.’

‘Plan B?’

‘We find our friends,’ said Geoff. ‘We round them up. Get out of the tower and leave Fisher here.’

Tiffany thought her ears must be full of wax.

‘We leave?’

Geoff’s mouth twisted as if tasting something bad.

‘Need to tell you. I didn’t before. Not even Felicity. Knew she’d disapprove.’

Tiffany waited.

‘I explained, didn’t I, how this tower’s rigged up. There’s a detonator. But it needs an electric charge to set it off.’ The blue eyes never blinked.
‘I’m handy enough with electrics. Before you got here, I ran my own cable to a lamp post outside. Years ago I found that you can tap the electricity–’

‘I know, Mrs Powell told me. Geoff, what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that if we get our friends out, I can plug my cable into the detonator. And the tower implodes with Fisher inside it.’

Her hands went to her mouth.

‘His kids would be buried with him, of course,’ Geoff mused. ‘That’s why I’m reluctant.’

‘Geoff, we couldn’t.’

‘If it’s my last chance to stop Fisher, I will. Better a few children killed here than thirty thousand dead under London.’

She had no answer to that. A hard core of ruthlessness lurked inside Geoff White that she’d never felt from Mrs Powell. Maybe, in such terrible times, that was what you needed. Someone who
was prepared to kill in order to stop his enemy.

‘But haven’t Fisher’s kids been taking the dynamite out?’ she said.

‘Only a fraction of it. There’s more than two thousand charges and most are still in place. The tower might not fall as cleanly as it would have, but it’s gonna
fall.’

She listened, aghast. So this was where pashki had led her. This was what it meant to live the life her teachers had chosen. A life red in tooth and claw.

‘Let’s find our team,’ said Geoff.

They entered an apartment through the balcony doorway. Geoff led her up to the fifteenth floor, stalking through the undergrowth of explosive cords. They found no-one.

‘Don’t like this.’ Geoff hurried her to the window. They resumed their climb up the outside wall, using the great banner as a scramble-net. Passing each window Tiffany peered
in and softly called. Every apartment rang empty. The tower’s summit came within arm’s reach. Geoff eased himself up to peer across the roof.

‘
Set
.’ He spoke the word savagely, like a curse – one of the Ancient Egyptian oaths that he and Mrs Powell sometimes used. Tiffany joined him at the concrete guardrail,
ready to see the worst – or so she thought.

The rooftop was infested with black masks. Surely the entire polecat gang was gathered here. She even recognised some whom she had chased from the building herself. Had they only pretended to
flee? Knots of polecats shuffled past the central cabin, manhandling heavy burdens –
struggling
burdens. A voice shouted feebly, sounding like Susie’s. Tiffany saw a face with a
tortoiseshell print: Cecile, hanging limp between her four captors. A writhing Yusuf was thrown to the deck and held down.

She choked on her words. ‘They got them.’

Her horror mounted as she counted her friends. There was Daniel. Olly. Susie with a bleeding nose. Who was missing?

‘Ben’s not there!’

Her spirits nearly rose. Then Geoff shifted out of her line of sight.

Ben sat hunched against the adjacent guardrail, flanked by three polecats. They had tied him up with some rubbery rope. Her Oshtis catra throbbed with dread.

The wind threw a shout.

‘White Cat! Where is the White Cat?’

She looked at Geoff. Was that sadness in his eyes?

‘I know you are here!’ The cry seemed to circle them. ‘Geoff, I can smell you. You are listening. Listen to this.’

She saw him then: gangling, powerful, moving as if made out of scissors. Tiffany bit her thumb. So that was Martin Fisher. She couldn’t let herself be scared of him. For Ben’s sake,
she couldn’t.

‘I have your boy here,’ Fisher called. ‘Come out. I will let him live.’

‘Geoff–’ that was Ben, ‘–don’t listen to him!’

‘Jeep.’

The largest of Ben’s guards struck a flame from a lighter.

‘Your boy will be broken in pieces,’ Fisher yelled. ‘Will you leave him as you left me?’

‘What’s he saying?’ Tiffany moaned. ‘What are they doing to him?’

‘Come to me,’ cried Fisher. ‘Take his place. Or hide and watch him die.’

That was all the information she needed. They were going to kill Ben,
kill
him. Where was Mrs Powell when they needed her? In the name of Anubis, where was she?

‘I’ve got to stop this.’ Tiffany reached up to the guard rail. Geoff pulled her back.

‘Sorry, sweetie. It’s not your time yet.’

Tiffany met his gaze with a horrible
déjà vu
. Once before she had watched a friend cut down in front of her. Could she bear to see it happen again? Geoff bit his lip.

‘This one’s mine.’

When Ben saw Geoff vault up onto the roof, in his mind he shouted
Run, save yourself
. But his mouth wouldn’t say it. His mouth belonged to someone who was too
afraid to die. He was a coward, a treacherous coward. Geoff strolled nearer, crossing the square gravel plain.
Run, save yourself.
No, it wasn’t in him. Overcome with shame he
couldn’t bear to look at Geoff, and yet he could not wrench his gaze away from his last hope.

‘Hi, Martin. Long time and all that.’

‘A long time,’ said Fisher. ‘A long time. Come along–’ He cocked his head, looming towards Geoff. He was so much taller. ‘You come to save him. That means. He
means more to you than I did.’

Geoff shrugged. ‘He’s not a deranged killer.’

Fisher struck him across the face. Geoff went sprawling. Jeep chuckled in Ben’s ear. Thomas and Hannah, pale-faced, watched. The other Cat Kin, pinned down by polecats, looked on with
defeated eyes.

‘Not so fast as you were.’ Fisher pulled Geoff to his feet and studied his face almost lovingly. Geoff’s lower lip was swelling. Fisher threw him down again. ‘Now you are
mine. Not his. Mine.’

‘Stop,’ Ben croaked.

‘I will drink your blood as the ferret drinks the rabbit’s. I will make myself a rattle from your teeth and your skull. We will be together, Geoff, you and I. You will never leave me
again.’

Another cracking blow to the head. Geoff didn’t try to defend himself.

‘Please, Geoff!’ Ben cried. ‘Don’t let him–’

‘You interrupt again,’ Jeep hissed, ‘and bang.’ The flame of his lighter lapped thirstily towards the fuse that he now held in his own fist. ‘Remember the
pigeon.’

‘Martin.’ Geoff startled everyone by slipping out of reach. ‘Before you kill me, you let Ben go.’

‘Let him go? No. He will live. He will live with me. They will all live with me and become like me.’

‘And everyone else has to die?’

‘They betrayed me. You all betrayed me.’

‘And the thousands of innocents you plan to drown? Did they betray you too?’

‘They are human beings,’ said Fisher. He advanced on Geoff, who backed away in circles. The polecats tracked his every movement, a score of heads swivelling together. Ben fumbled at
the knots behind his back.

‘So you kill half of London. What then?’ Geoff waved his hand at Fisher’s followers. ‘What happens when you’ve got no humans left to kill? If I was in your gang
I’d be getting
really
worried. What happens when you notice that they’re human too? What happens when you look in the mirror, Martin?’

Fisher lunged. This time Geoff was too slow. He went down.

‘Martin!’ Ben knew his own voice, but had no idea what it would say. ‘Martin, do you think they ever gave up?’

‘Huh?’ Jeep seemed too puzzled to silence him.

‘When do you think they gave up hope?’ Ben worked another knot loose. ‘Martin, your parents. Your real, human parents. The ones who lost you as a child. When do you think they
gave up?’

Fisher shook his head as if a gnat had buzzed him. Ben noticed how very still Thomas and Hannah were standing.

‘Did they forget they had a child?’ Ben yelled.

Jeep rattled the shock tube. ‘Shut your yap.’

‘Or do you think,’ Ben plunged on, glancing at Thomas, sensing Hannah’s shifting feet, ‘do you think they’re still out there somewhere? Wondering what happened to
you?’