“The cat,” said Valerie. “It’s him.” She put the hammer in Sarah’s hand and strode towards the front door.
“No,” said Sarah, suddenly alarmed. “Valerie, don’t!”
But she was too late. Valerie had the front door open, and something came flying in. Something moving so fast it was scarcely more than a blur, aimed straight at Valerie’s head.
Valerie screamed. Lines of blood streaked her face. A black cat hit the ground, recovered itself immediately, and again launched itself at Valerie, this time trying to claw its way up her leg.
“Kill it! Get it off me!” Valerie shrieked. She kicked her legs wildly, trying to dislodge the animal, and began to bash at it with her heavy purse.
Sarah hesitated. There was something wrong here, she thought. Was it only another distraction, to keep them from destroying the figure? But if the cat was Jade’s other form, then here was the chance they had hoped for.
Wishing for gloves or a blanket to protect herself but aware that she had no time to get anything, Sarah dropped the hammer and jammed the stone figure into a pocket of her jeans and stepped forward. She grabbed hold of the animal by the scruff of its neck and the bony ridge of its back and, although it twisted and writhed in her grasp, it could not reach her, and she was able to dislodge it from Valerie’s thigh.
“Get me something,” Sarah said. “A blanket or something—I don’t know how long I can hold it.”
The cat was possessed, howling again and writhing madly.
Valerie dug into her purse. The blood flowed freely down her face, staining her blouse with bright red flowers. She looked up, tossing her head back in an impatient movement to clear both blood and hair from her eyes. She withdrew a curved, shining knife from her purse. The sight of it made Sarah’s stomach lurch and she almost thought she remembered the knife from some other time, or perhaps a dream. A dream of blood and carnage. Holding the knife seemed to calm Valerie. She smiled, and the mad, tense face relaxed beneath the stripes of blood.
“This time he won’t get away,” Valerie said.
Sarah looked down at the cat, realizing that it had stopped struggling and was silent. When she looked down at it, it twisted its head within her grasp to look up at her, and Sarah saw that familiar golden stare again.
As those golden eyes burned into hers, she felt her nostrils stop up, her mouth become sealed, and she realized that she had stopped breathing. She couldn’t remember how to breathe.
“Don’t look at it; you idiot,” Valerie said harshly.
With a gasp, Sarah broke away.
“I thought you knew so much,” Valerie said contemptuously. “I thought you were being so careful. He’s got you, doesn’t he? You’d never have been able to break away or smash the statue if I hadn’t come over. You’d be helpless by yourself. You still have the stone?”
Sarah nodded, staring at Valerie.
With the hand not holding the knife, Valerie caught hold of the cat’s throat. The tips of her fingers met the tips of Sarah’s through the smooth fur. She was smiling.
“Shall we make it watch while we smash the stone?” Valerie asked, her voice heavily playful. “Teach it about impending doom. Let Jade know we’ve won—that he’s trapped inside one very scrawny cat until we decide to end all his lives with this very sharp blade.”
The cat lay as still in their shared grasp as if already dead. Sarah longed to look at it, to look at its eyes and see if Jade was still there, but she controlled herself. That would be foolish. He could still destroy her, if she let him. But all the same, she could not shake the disturbing thought that Jade might have fled this limp body for a safer one.
“Do you want to hold him while I kill him?” Valerie asked. “Or do you want me to do it all? A little more blood won’t make any difference to my clothes.”
Sarah did not like the idea of holding the cat while it was slaughtered, but she did not relinquish her grasp. “Valerie,” she said urgently. “We need to think this through. There’s something wrong here. Why did he come to us? He must have known what we were planning, so why did he come running straight into a trap? We should wait—”
“You wait,” said Valerie. The hand that had encircled the cat’s neck pulled away; the hand that held the knife swung in close. The sharp blade bit into the furred throat and there was a sudden, thick rush of blood—bright and oddly beautiful against the sleek blackness.
Sarah stared at the limp, warm mass in her hands. Then, as the blood began to crawl down her arm, she threw the cat away, crying out her disgust.
She turned to Valerie, then, meaning to curse her furiously, but the words died unspoken. Something was terribly wrong.
Valerie’s eyes had rolled up so that only the whites showed beneath fluttering lids. Always pale, she was now so dead white that the welts on her face stood out lividly and seemed to pulse. The muscles in her neck were taut and corded, and her lips stretched back from her teeth. Her chest labored; she was breathing, but seemed unable to draw a breath deep enough to satisfy.
Jade.
For a moment Sarah was frozen, staring, and then she remembered what she had to do.
She had to destroy the statue.
Trembling, she pulled it from her pocket, feeling as if she had been carrying a venomous snake in her jeans. Why had she waited so long? Why hadn’t she destroyed it when she found it? Was she so weak, so controlled by Jade?
Still she paused, holding the thing in her hands, looking carefully at it. It was oddly beautiful, and yet undeniably disturbing. A naked woman carved with great skill from a piece of jade, with such attention to detail that the lines and hollows that made up the tiny face became an expression of gleeful, individual evil. But it did not move as she stared at it, and she was aware, as she held it, that Jade had left only the faintest trace of himself in the stone, only an anchor. He must be focusing all his power on Valerie, struggling with her for possession of her body, hoping to win after all.
Sarah backed away from Valerie, recovered her hammer, and crouched on the floor, setting the stone figure carefully down. She gripped the hammer with both hands, then, and raised it high, and brought it down with all her might.
The hammer struck the wooden floor, the impact sending a teeth-jarring shock through her body. Sarah stared down in disbelief, but she knew she had seen it. As the hammer descended, the green stone had seemed to become pliable, semi-liquid, and it had squirmed to one side, just far enough to avoid the blow.
Valerie screamed.
Sarah looked around in time to see Valerie rushing at her, knife raised and threatening, her eyes wide. No time even to stand. With Valerie nearly on top of her, Sarah tackled her legs and leaned sharply to one side, toppling Valerie to the ground. Fearful of the knife, the blood pulsing loudly in her ears, Sarah managed to push Valerie onto her back without losing hold of the hammer.
“Valerie!” Sarah said sharply. “It’s me, Sarah. Don’t hurt me—I want to help you!”
Valerie’s face was contorted, confused, her eyes unfocused. Sarah imagined she could see Jade’s mastery coming and going, first one persona and then the other flickering out of Valerie’s eyes.
Sarah left her and scrabbled desperately on the floor to find the figure. Again she raised the hammer and brought it down. She heard Valerie behind her, but did not waver. The hammer landed hard and unerringly on the stone and cracked it in two, severing the head from the body.
Valerie screamed again, and Sarah felt a painful wrenching at her left shoulder, then a burning sensation in her upper arm. She whirled around and saw Valerie tottering and waving a bloody knife, her eyes glittering.
A quick glance sideways and down told Sarah that she had been cut; blood was soaking the blue cotton of her sleeve. She didn’t stop to think about it—time enough to hurt later. She could still use her arm, and she needed it. She took a firmer grip on the hammer, hoping she would not be forced to use it against Valerie.