The bliss was gone. Sarah felt nothing. Nothing but fear.
No, she said, but no mouth opened to pronounce the word. No. No voice spoke. No, no, no.
Her body moved back and forth erratically, jerkily. Arms swung back and forth. Head twitched on shoulders. Legs lost their strength, and let the body fall heavily to the floor.
Sarah, somewhere deep inside, could feel none of this, although she knew it was happening. She could still think, and she still had hope of regaining her body. If only she knew how to fight. How could she fight when she could not move?
Think.
As she had learned to do in the nightmares she had as a child, Sarah struggled to close her eyes. If she could close her eyes, she would know she was dreaming. Sarah concentrated all her strength on closing her eyes. Such a little thing to do; she had been doing it all her life. Suddenly everything went black. Did that mean her eyes were closed? Had she done that, or was it the other? Sarah opened her mouth. She felt the roaring darkness rush in. She couldn’t breathe. She was choking on darkness, but she couldn’t close her mouth even if it filled her—she had to breathe. She choked but went on trying to scream. If she could scream, she could expel the darkness. She screamed. And heard herself scream. And knew that she was herself, alone in her body again.
Sarah shuddered under the force of the memory. All night she had fought against that thing, her invisible assailant, the rat who wanted to kill her and take her body.
She had thought, by morning, that she had won because she was still alive, still alone in her body. But all she had won was a resting-spell. She had only survived. But so had her enemy, the thing that changed bodies like suits of clothes.
The rat was dead, but the spirit had survived and was inhabiting the body of a cat. Sarah was certain that it would attack her again—and she was not at all certain she could survive another round.
In a panic, she leaped to her feet. She had to get out, get far away from the house and the cat.
The cat was waiting on the back porch.
Sarah stopped just in time, her fingers curling around the big, old metal doorknob, and stared through the window in the door at the evil-eyed creature. Her panicked breathing rasped in her ears. How had it known what she would do? Could it read her mind? She knew that if she turned and ran to the front door, the cat could make it around the house and meet her there, attack her there.
Sarah whimpered softly to herself, closing her eyes and leaning against the door. She had to get out, somehow. She had to get away. Why had she come back at all? What sort of spell had the thing put on her, that she forgot about it as soon as she was away from the house?
This time she swore that she would remember, if only she could get away. She’d run and run and never look back . . . if only it would let her. But it was guarding her, a cat before a mousehole. Last time it had been a rat, but now she was the timid rodent.
Sarah struggled to conquer her fear and think. There had to be a way out, a way past the cat. There had to be a way of tricking it, or overpowering it. She opened her eyes and looked through the glass at the cat. It stared back quietly, unmoving, yellow eyes huge.
Sarah’s skin crawled, and she could imagine the burning pain of raking claws, the piercing bite of sharp teeth as the cat leaped on her. She felt faint. She needed air, fresh air. She had to get out . . . her hand grasped the doorknob and began to turn it.
Her breath came out in a sudden hiss and she dropped her hold on the doorknob at the same moment as she tore her gaze away from the animal. She had forgotten the most dangerous thing about it—those eyes, and the power they had when she looked into them. It would hypnotize her if she wasn’t careful; it would leap through her eyes into her brain.
Because it was her mind, far more than her body, that was in danger. Physically, the thing was only a cat, and Sarah knew that she was much bigger and stronger than a cat. Unless it had rabies, it couldn’t do her much harm—not if she was quick and careful, and ran like hell for the safety of her car.
The idea of going outside, past the cat that waited for her, was still frightening, but it was far preferable to the idea of staying here, trapped in the house, waiting for whatever new horrors the darkness would bring.
She drew a long, deep breath. Then, slipping her purse over one shoulder, she took the broom from the corner and gripped it firmly. Then she opened the door.
At the first click of the knob the cat sprang forward. Sarah slammed the door immediately, and the cat backed away, shaking its head as if its whiskers had been pinched. Giving it no time to recover, Sarah opened the door again, and this time she slipped through and pulled it firmly shut behind her. She took the broom in both hands and held it warningly as the cat glared. The animal did not move, and it blocked her way to the outer door. Sarah shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, finding it a struggle to keep the cat in sight without being trapped into looking into those glaring yellow eyes. But although she kept expecting the cat to spring at her physically, it did not. It was not attacking, it was playing with her, daring her to make the first move. That idea annoyed Sarah, and stirred her to action. She lifted the broom up and brought it down in an arc, swatting the cat flatly against one side.
The cat let out a screech that set Sarah’s teeth on edge, but the force of the blow swept the animal through the doorway and out onto the steps. Before it could regain its footing, Sarah had rushed through the door herself, slamming it behind her.
She stared down at the cat, only inches away from her now. Its back was arched and the tail swollen up like a balloon. It hissed, revealing dagger-sharp teeth and a pink-white tongue, and for one paralyzing moment Sarah was certain it would leap for her face. She closed her eyes, hands tightening on the broom, and said a mental prayer.
Nothing happened.
Sarah opened her eyes just in time to see the cat leap off the steps and bound around the side of the house, out of sight.
Setting the broom crossways against the door, Sarah walked to her car, feeling the fear and tension leave her body, swirling away like water down a drain.
Now, what was all that about, she wondered. It was only a cat, and she’d never been afraid of cats before. What sort of nightmare was it that had upset her so much? She touched her face and found it hot. Maybe she did have a fever. People with fevers often had strange dreams.
She looked back at the house and found that she still felt a strong aversion to going inside, although she couldn’t remember exactly why. Bad dreams? An evil spirit? A cat? Images flickered through her mind but would not be pinned down for examination.
Finally, with an effort, Sarah pushed the whole problem out of her mind. She would think about it later—right now, she had things to do. She felt weak and shaky, and decided that a touch of flu might explain everything.
Sarah drove first to Dobie Mall, a shopping center in the base of a high-rise dormitory on the southwest edge of campus. There was a telephone office there, and she could save money by picking up a telephone and installing it herself.
Once she had done that—holding fast to her request for a standard telephone, refusing the charms of telephones hidden inside boxes or shaped like Mickey Mouse—Sarah crossed the street and wandered down that part of Guadalupe Street known as The Drag.
It was filled, as always in term time, with crowds of students. Sarah knew it might have been cheaper to do her shopping in one of the malls, or among the strips of discount stores in North Austin, but going to The Drag was a treat she gave herself. She felt comfortable there, at home wandering among the colorful crowds, her senses tickled by smells from the eggroll and barbecue stands, the music of street musicians, the vivid displays in shop windows and on the temporary stalls of vendors selling pottery, cheap clothing, wooden toys, jewelry and leather belts and bags. Sarah let herself be seduced by her favorite bookstore, emerging after half an hour’s browsing with a package under her arm; she tried on rings she knew she couldn’t buy; she ate lunch in a vegetarian cafe, one of the vantage points for people-watching; she paused to talk with a couple of acquaintances; and she even managed to buy a few of the things on her shopping list.