Selina pulled the hooded mask down over her face. Rather than brood about where Rose might be, she'd let herself into Old MoJo's office and find out for sure. Mother Joseph trusted God, the holy saints, and no one else. The lock on her office door was state of the art, but still no match for the supple steel rods Catwoman extracted from an invisible pocket on her thigh. She entered the office and closed the door silently behind her. Her eyes were already adjusted to the darkness; she could have held a phone book at arm's length and read each number without strain.
The desk was messy---a good sign; it had been unnaturally neat when she'd been here with the kitten earlier. With her arms linked behind her back, Catwoman leaned over, studying the disorder without disturbing it.
"What the---?"
Old MoJo's handwriting was Parochial School Perfect. Every word was legible; the problem was, most of them weren't English. After a moment Selina decided they were Latin.
"Not even the Pope uses Latin..."
But Latin it was, and remained, no matter how fiercely she stared at it. Selina felt an urge to sweep everything onto the floor, to smash and shatter all that could be broken. Her hands slipped free, they hovered above the desk. It was urges like this that had always gotten her into trouble. Slowly she knotted her fingers, pressing the steel claws harmlessly into the black leather sewn across her palms.
"Easy," Catwoman whispered. "Just because Old MoJo writes some dumb, dead language doesn't mean you can't figure out what she did with Rose."
There was a phone on Mother Joseph's desk: a sleek techno-toy with a wide variety of buttons and a single flashing red light.
"Be calm. Think. Think."
A steel claw caressed the button nearest the flashing light.
"Hello? Hello? This is Dr. Gallan's service. If you're there, Sister, pick it up." The nasal, feminine voice paused dramatically. "Dr. Gallan wants you to know that she got your message and is on her way. I want to know where she's going. She didn't have the number. She said we could get it from you. So call us," and the woman recited the number.
Catwoman smiled, memorizing it while the machine reset itself. Then she lifted the handset and pressed another button. A rapid, ten-note melody played in her ear. Selina wasn't a musical genius. She didn't have perfect pitch and she'd have to press the redial button many more times before she could memorize the melody, but she knew she hadn't made a local call and she was pretty sure she hadn't called Dr. Gallan's service.
The circuit closed. Somewhere a phone rang once, twice... a dozen times. Catwoman was about to give up when the handset came to life.
"Eye-aitch-em, Martyr's Blood."
Catwoman was nonplussed by the cryptic greeting. Fortunately, the groggy woman at the other end of the line blamed herself for the silence and tried again:
"Sisters of the Immaculate Heart, Blood of Holy Martyr's Convent, Mother House. May I help you?"
"I hope so," the black-costumed woman replied. It all made sense once she remembered that religious orders had a quasimilitary organization. The sisters here were soldiers of the Immaculate Heart army; Old MoJo was their commanding officer; the East End mission was a front-line outpost. And Blood of Holy Martyr's Convent wasn't just another fort, it was their army headquarters. "I'm trying to locate Rose D'Onofreo."
"Rose D'Onofreo... ? I don't know..."
The woman didn't sound uncertain, she sounded suspicious. Catwoman changed tactics. "I'm sorry. The person I'm really looking for is Dr. Gallan. This is her service. We seem to have lost track of her. The last we knew she was seeing a Rose D'Onofreo at this number."
"Dr. Gallan? Yes, she was here, but she left hours ago. I don't know who... No, wait, it was a young woman from the mission." Time expired as the convent woman became fully awake. "Who is this? Where are you calling from? Why are you asking about Rose---"
Catwoman reached down and severed the connection with a claw. With the help of a picture a few inches from the phone, she'd learned all she needed to know. The snapshot showed the smiling faces of a quartet of nuns Selina didn't recognize. That didn't matter. What mattered was the mansion behind them and the sign beside them. The words were a bit hard to read---Old MoJo needed a lesson on focusing her camera---but at least they were in English: Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Blood of the Holy Martyr's Convent. Mother House. And an address so complete it included the zip code and the phone number.
Rose was safe inside the Mother House. Whatever had terrorized her wouldn't dare penetrate those walls. But Catwoman would have to, if Selina wanted to know anything more.
At that moment, Selina wanted only to go home.
She climbed her building's fire escape, then vaulted over the wrought-iron railing and eased along the masonry ledge. The cats came and went through the window gate. Catwoman went that way, but she came back through a corner window after checking the home out in a discreetly mounted mirror. A costume and its reputation were no guarantee against surprises.
Selina shed the costume immediately, returning it to its place beneath the bed with a casual kick. Her conscience, speaking with her mother's voice, warned her to treat it better. She ignored the warning, as she ignored most of the well-intended and occasionally wise advice that dead woman had given her.
Without turning on the lights, she showered and cleared a space for herself amid the cats on the rumpled bed. The gray tiger kitten was curled up on the only pillow. He hissed when she slid her hand beneath him and dug in with his claws. She hissed right back and dumped him on the floor. She was asleep before he was back snuggling into the curve of her neck.
Selina Kyle didn't dream. Dreams were for other people. She had nightmares, but she learned to stop remembering them years ago. So Selina didn't dream about Rose and she didn't dream that the little gray kitten had turned into a snarling beast. She didn't remember being Rose, or becoming the beast. She didn't shiver with fear, or sweat with rage, but when she woke up with the midday sun burning her eyes, Selina felt as if she'd been on the losing side of a prolonged war. She tried to get on track with exercise.
Cats that were born cats didn't have to exercise; they slept, ate, groomed, hunted, or played---mostly slept. Catwoman was human, and she needed exercise, a lot of it, to keep her reflexes sharp and her muscles toned. She exercised at least four hours every day. Sometimes it was all she did besides sleeping and eating. She wasn't into grooming or playing.
This morning, though, Selina's arms were spaghetti and her feet were lead. Her legs got tangled up in the jump rope; she bloodied her lip crashing to the floor. Then she lost her balance doing handstand push-ups and flopped on her back like a sack of cement. The cats gathered around, exchanging wise glances. When the gray kitten clawed his way up her shoulder and stood with his forepaws on her chin, staring into her left eye, she admitted defeat.
Catwoman would have to find the Bloody Martyr's convent if Selina wasn't going to start remembering her dreams again. But first Selina would have to find out where Riverwyck was, and how to get there. Catwoman's knowledge of Gotham City ended at the city limits. She never took vacations and didn't even have a driver's license. It took until Tuesday to figure out where the bedroom community was located and which train line went there, because an ongoing budget crisis kept the public libraries closed on Sunday and Monday. She wound up buying a round-trip ticket and waiting impatiently amid a throng of suits and briefcases for the afternoon exodus express. The businesswomen simply pretended she wasn't there. The men appraised her East End wardrobe (boldly patterned leggings, neon green V-neck sweater, door-knocker earrings---it had seemed reasonable enough downtown) and smirked or looked away. One of them had the gall to ask if she'd be available later on, say, after ten? The would-be philanderer scuttled away as soon as Selina focused her cold, glassy stare on him.