She had backed away from him, her paw raised to slash him, but his golden eyes held her, his pupils huge and black, his purring voice drawing her, enticing her.
"You and I, Dulcie, we belong to the dark. Such magic and passion are rare, are to be treasured.
"Oh, yes, the dark ways call to you, sweet tabby. The dark, voodoo ways." He narrowed his eyes, his purr rumbling. "Voodoo magic. Black magic. Shall I say the spells for you, the dark spells? The magic so dear to your jungle brothers? Come, my Dulcie…" and he slid close against her, making her tremble.
She spun away from him hissing and crouched to leap to the transom, but he blocked her way. She fled into the showroom. He followed.
"In the jungle, my dear, the voodoo witches make dark enchantments, such exotic and exciting spells-spells to sicken and waste your enemies-and love spells, my dear…"
She leaped away but he was there pressing against her. When she lashed out at him, his topaz eyes burned with amusement and his black tail described a measured dance.
"My dark powers fascinate you, sweet Dulcie. My cunning is human cunning, but beneath my black fur, my skin is marked by the spots of the jungle cat.
"I have teased jungle dragons as big as two men and have come away unscathed. I have hunted among constrictors twenty feet long, have dodged snakes so huge they could swallow a dozen cats." And the tomcat's words and his steamy gaze filled her with visions she didn't want.
"I have hunted in the mangrove trees, dodging hairy beasts with the faces of ghosts, creatures that hang upside down among the branches, their curving claws reaching as sharp as butcher knives, their coats swarming with vermin." The black torn purred deep in his throat. "I have witnessed human voodoo rites where an image of Christ is painted with goat's blood and common cats are skinned alive, their innards…"
"Stop it!" She twisted away, leaping to the top of a cabinet- but again he was beside her, his eyes wild, her distress exciting him. "Come run with me, Dulcie of the laughing eyes. Come with me down the shore under the full moon. Come where the marsh birds nest, where we can suck bird's eggs and eat the soft, sweet baby birds, where we can haze the bedraggled stray cats that cower beneath the docks, the starving common cats that crouch mute beneath the pier. Come, sweet Dulcie…"
His words, frightening and cruel, stirred a wildness in her, and the torn pressed her down, began to lick her ear. "Come with me, sweet Dulcie, before the moon is gone. Come now while the night is on us." His voice was soft, beguiling, dizzying her.
She raked him hard across the nose and leaped away, knocking sweaters to the floor, tipping a tall wooden man that fell with a crash behind her as she fled through the storeroom and up the pile of crates and out the transom.
Dropping down the vine to the mist-damp sidewalk, she fled up the side lane and across Eighth, across Seventh and then Ocean past the darkened, empty shops, never looking back, her heart pounding so hard she couldn't have heard a dozen beasts chasing her, certainly couldn't have heard the soft padding of Azrael's swift pursuit.
But when, stopping in the shadow of a car, she crouched to look behind her, the sidewalk and street were empty. Above her, along the rooftops, nothing moved.
What had happened to her back there? Despite her anger, she had been nearly lost in a cocoon of dark desire.
Pheromones, she told herself. Nothing but a chemical reaction. His sooty ways have nothing to do with real life.
Shaken with repugnance at herself, she spun away again racing for home, speeding past the closed shops and at last hitting her own street, storming across Wilma's garden, trampling the flowers, up the back steps and in through her cat door, terrified of the dark stranger and terrified of herself.
Crouching on the linoleum, she watched her door swinging back and forth, unable to shake the notion that he would come charging through.
But after a long time when the plastic door grew still and remained pale, without any looming shadow, she tried to calm herself, washing and smoothing her ruffled fur and licking at her sweating paws.
She felt bruised with shame. She had for one long moment abandoned Joe Grey-for one moment abandoned the bright clarity of life and slipped toward something dark, something rancid with evil.
Azrael's twisted ways were not her ways.
She was not an ignorant, simple beast to whom a dalliance with Azrael would be of no importance. She was sentient; she and Joe Grey bore within themselves a rare and wonderful gift. With human intelligence came judgment. And with judgment came commitment, an eternal and steely obligation and joy from which one did not turn away.
In her gullible and foolish desire, she had nearly breeched that commitment.
There would never be another like Joe Grey, another who touched her with Joe's sweet magic. She and Joe belonged to each other; their souls were forever linked. How could she have warmed, for the merest instant, to Azrael's evil charms?
Pheromones, she told herself, and defiantly she stared at her cat door ready to destroy any intruder.
10
LATER THAT MORNING, in the patio of the Spanish-style structure, where piles of new lumber lay across the dry, neglected flower beds, from within a downstairs apartment came the sudden ragged whine of a skill-saw, jarring the two cats as they padded in through the arch past a stack of two-by-fours. The air was heavy with the scent of raw wood, sweet and sharp.
Joe couldn't count how many mice he and Dulcie had killed in the tall grass that surrounded this building, before Clyde bought the place. Situated high above the village, the two-story derelict stood alone on the crest of the hill facing a dead-end street. The day Clyde decided to buy it was the first time Joe had gained access or wanted to enter the musty rooms. Even the exterior smelled moldy; the place was a dump, the walls stained and badly in need of paint, the roof tiles faded and mossy, the roof gutter hanging loose.
That day, trotting close to Clyde entering the front apartment beneath festoons of cobwebs as thick as theater curtains, he was put in mind of a Charles Addams creepy cartoon; beneath the cobwebs and peeling wallpaper hung old-fashioned, imitation gas lights; under Joe's paws, the ancient floors were deeply scarred as if generations of gigantic rats had dug and gnawed at the wood.
"You're going to buy this heap?"
"Made an offer today," Clyde had said proudly.
"I hope it was a low offer. What are they asking for this monstrosity?"
"Seven hundred."
"Seven hundred dollars? Well…"
"Seven hundred thousand."
"Seven hundred thousand?" He had stared at Clyde, unbelieving.
Over the sour smell of accumulated dirt he could smell dead spiders, dead lizards, and generations of decomposing mouse turds. "And who is going to clean and restore this nightmare?"
"I am, of course. Why else would I…"
"You? You are going to repair this place? Clyde Damen who can't even change a lightbulb without a major theatrical production? You're going to do the work here? This is your sound financial investment, and you're going to protect that investment by working on it yourself?"
"May I point out that one apartment has been refurbished, that it looks great and is rented for a nice fifteen hundred a month? That most of what you're seeing is simply dirt, Joe. The place will be totally different when it's cleaned and painted. You take five apartments at fifteen hundred each…"