He met Bastet's eyes. His mien was respectful, certainly, for she was revered in heart and mind by all his kind, but his gaze was steady and calm, set. He would not yield.
The goddess' platinum-furred body was perfectly still, her tail coiled daintily around her forepaws. She read her companion's determination but felt no anger that his will was set against her command. Pride and courage, independence of thought and strength of will, dignity of being were integral to a feline soul and honored her; abject submission could never do so. It was a glory to all catkind that he had not been broken by the awesome adversity he had endured.
Sadness softened the serene majesty of her exquisitely formed features. He was without choice in this all the same, as was she. The Great One who ruled above all the creatures' gods had set her charges on the Ninefold Path, and every cat must walk it the full distance before rest and reward could at last be claimed.
You have been hard-used, little traveler, she said with infinite gentleness, but eight more incarnations lie before you, eight more lives in which you must seek to follow and fulfill the Plan as it has been given to us.
No more Plans and no more Partners, he declared firmly. All I need to know of those, I have learned already to my great hurt. I cannot refuse to live again, for that is the nature and the fate of a cat, but never, O Divinity, shall I voluntarily approach one of those blood-tainted renegades or open myself at all to their treachery.
Not all humans use those sharing place with them so, she corrected gently.
The goddess fell silent. She understood his stand and sympathized with it, but by holding to it, this high and worthy soul was dooming himself to eight more barren lives. He would never know the greatest joy and fulfillment a cat could have before gaining entry into the Wide Realms. He would never experience the Plan as it should be lived, never walk in true partnership with a human in a relationship where each loved and supported the other in accordance with his or her own nature and abilities. Even if the opportunity for such an association should present itself, he would not and could not permit so much as the initial approach to take place. Most assuredly, he would never seek a Partner of his own accord. As a result, his remaining lives would be dim shadows of what they could have been and even the eternity to follow would be less full, less complete, and less satisfying.
Her head raised. That was the fate of all too many of her charges, but this little one had suffered so intensely and had come through so strong. He deserved better than he would permit himself, and she determined to take a hand in his affairs herself.
You need rest and peace before resuming your work. Go now and taste a little of the happiness of my realm. It may be that I shall assign you a place and specific duties within it rather than merely send you forth with my blessing and good wishes to seek your fortune as it falls.
Francie eagerly lifted the statue out of its box and studied it closely. It was thirteen inches high and surprisingly heavy for its size, though she should have anticipated that weight. It was bronze, after all, not something cast in plastic, however cunningly.
The little cat was indeed a lovely thing. It was an exact reproduction, albeit on a smaller scale, of the Egyptian original which always drew and held her when she made one of her frequent visits to the museum. Here was the same realism in the lithe, muscular body, the same serenity. Even the gold, intricately worked collar looked to be identical to that worn by the original. She had paid a hefty price for the piece, but it was money she did not grudge. To her mind, it was more than well spent.
The woman stroked the figurine as she set it on the table near the closet in her bedroom that she had allotted to receive it. She was pleased to see that it looked as well there as she had hoped.
Her eyes instinctively went to the empty place below the pillow on her bed, and she sighed. Poor little Turtle. If only she were here to appreciate this new acquisition with her…
Francie's home had been catless for three weeks now, ever since the eighteen-year-old had died peacefully in her arms. It was still too soon, but she would not wait too very long before opening her heart and life to another four-footed friend, or maybe to a pair. There were many little creatures in this world in need of the love, care, and respect she wanted to give, beings who would return any offering of hers a thousandfold.
The need were great but the apparent response were slight?
Francie's heart seemed to jerk out of her breast and then stop altogether. The question had been quite audible, perfectly comprehensible, but it had rung directly in her mind, not in her ears at all.
She whirled to face the statue, from which the thought-words had seemed to come. It was precisely as she had left it.
The human blinked and shook her head emphatically. Of course, it was the same! What was she imagining? Some ancient curse out of a violated tomb? Such things might or might not be, whatever the denial of accredited science, but one had at least to have the misfortune of possessing a genuine artifact to come under their power. Her cat was a wonderful replica, but it was of very recent vintage and had been manufactured by thoroughly modern methods for the most unmystical purpose of making money. It was not even issued by the museum owning the original but by a large, mail order mint specializing in producing such collectibles.
It is a fine piece for all that, a worthy image of me and a suitable focus for my manifestation as well as a guide in leading me to you-though I grant the craftsfolk fashioning it hardly anticipated that their work was destined for such honor and significance.
"What… Who…" This could not be happening, but with all her senses contradicting reason, she had to try to conduct herself as circumstances seemed to demand.
I am Bastet, of course, the reply came instantly, amusement rippling in it, she whose image you display.
"But it's not real, Francie protested.
It is real enough, although not old. The original statue was new, too, in its own time. The mental voice became graver. I do not inhabit it. The figure is merely a focus, as I have said. Folk of your species have always been disconcerted by being addressed, as it were, from out of the air.
Holding a discussion with an inanimate object was not particularly reassuring, either, the woman thought miserably. Was this insanity, then? She had always imagined the mad to be at ease with their delusions, accepting the reality, the lightness, of them even when they were of an unpleasant nature…
Do not fear for your sanity, child, the soft voice assured her. Your mind is sound, very sound, as well as uncommonly open and sensitive to the Wide Realms, or I should not have revealed myself to you. You are, in full truth and concrete reality, in the presence of Bastet, who was once worshiped by your own kind even as I am to this day by my fur folk.
A new thought, and with it sharp fear, filled the human's mind. "I give you welcome, Lady Bastet, as best I can, and respect, but I can't adore you." The words came in a rush before she could be struck down for a seeming lack of courtesy and her failure to display the expected behavior, which she did not even know. "I-I bought the statue because I loved it, not…"
I know where your allegiance lies. That is proper, and I do not expect you to waver in it. It is not your worship that I desire but your service, more of that same service you gave me for eighteen of your years in your association with one of my charges.
"Turtle!"
The goddess smiled. Francie could feel it, although she still saw nothing but the immobile figure. A being rich in love and peace now free to enjoy the bliss of the Wide Realms since this last was her final incarnation. She only awaits reunion with your spirit for her happiness to be complete.
The woman swallowed. "I'm glad of that. I wouldn't call her back here, though I miss her terribly." She hesitated. "She was so much a part of my life and of this apartment that everything I do or see here brings memories of her. They're happy, but still…"
I know, Francine. You are a true Partner, ever treating one with one with your comrade, equal to equal, despite the differences in species and gifts. That is as it should be, though many even among those who love my little ones fail to achieve it.
Francie's eyes, as green as Bastet's own although of a less intense shade, rested pensively on the goddess' image. "What do you want with me, Lady Bastet, and what made you choose me for your work in the first place? A great many very talented and capable people love cats. I'm in no way extraordinary at all."
Again, that mental smile. Let others more practiced than your kind in the reading of hearts and souls be the judge of that, Francine of the Partners. I shall answer your second question first. The sensitivity to reality beyond what your people see as the normal pale and your openness of mind were strong factors influencing my choice, as was your proven history as a Partner. Your reasons for acquiring my image sealed my decision. You did not want it for display, for idle show as some sort of proof of culture. You took it into your home because you loved the work and the species it imagined, because you were drawn to the particular vision of my charges, the respect and dignity and beauty, that the ancient artist revealed in his portrayal of me.
The human's lips tightened. High praise sometimes preceded dark or heavy labor. "The service you want from me?"
There is a cat currently in my realm who was severed from his first incarnation only a week after passing his first natal anniversary. It was a year of unremitting abuse.
"I don't want to hear it!" She caught herself. "I'm sorry, Lady, but don't tell me the details. They'll only torment me. I can't do anything about them, not even try to avenge him. Such stories bother me terribly," she finished lamely.
Very well. It is not necessary for you to know. Let it suffice to say that never in that year did he know a tender word or gentle touch, yet he came forth with mind and spirit unbroken, though with heart heavily scarred. Soon, he must begin his second incarnation following the nature of his kind. The scars he carries within him will prevent him from seeking, much less attaining, a partnership such as Turtle enjoyed throughout her thrice-blessed life, not in his new incarnation or in any of those to follow it, unless an active and constant effort is made to undo the damage he has sustained.
"You believe I can help?" Francie asked doubtfully. She would not have dared to adopt a human child so troubled, recognizing that she was not qualified to handle the challenge, and she doubted that a member of the feline race was any less complex.
Without question, Bastet responded, but the full benefit may not blossom until the incarnation to follow. The cat died young. It is my belief and hope that he will heal quickly under consistent love and care, but you must face the possibility that you shall never receive from him any part of the open affection and trust that you enjoyed in your time with Turtle even should he be with you as long or longer still.
Francie's eyes closed. The image of Turtle's loving little face filled her mind, Turtle, who had almost lived for her…
I do not expect you to go on for years without the warmth of a true Partner. There is no reason why you should not share your life with a kitten of happier birth as well once this troubled companion is settled. All three of you would benefit from her presence. I do need to know now if you will accept my commission. Choose freely. Refusal will bring no penalty since I know it will spring from your doubt of your ability to meet the small one's needs.
"Of course, I'll take him!" The woman paused. "He won't actually attack me, will he?" A cat's teeth and claws were no mean weapons when wielded in earnest.
No, neither your person nor your property will suffer, nor will he violate your sanitary arrangements.
"He'll be real? A normal kitten, I mean. If I start buying food for a ghost or even just talking to one, people're going to see me as pretty odd, maybe strange enough to cost me my job. No one's going to want to buy a house from a head case."
Bastet laughed. He will be a very live and visible cat.
"Cat? Not a kitten?"
"Cat. Those who have been badly used, unless they died as infants, cannot return in that state. They are no longer capable of the wonder and innocent trust of life's early spring.
The human squared her shoulders. "When will you bring him, or how do I go about getting him?"
I shall give him to you now.
A thought struck Francie. "Could you let me have half an hour, Lady Bastet? I have Turtle's things clean and ready since I'd planned on adopting another cat fairly quickly, but food's perishable, and I don't have any of that in the house. It'd probably be best if he could be assured from the start that he'll always have access to that."
A wise and thoughtful suggestion. So let it be, Francine of the Partners. We can wait that long, he and I.
Francie had not known what to expect in the emotionally injured waif, but even after six months had gone by, she was still a little stunned by the magnificence of the cat. Bast's Gift, for so she had called him, was beautiful. His short coat was a gleaming black with no white hair upon it, broken only by the enormous copper eyes. He was also big, fourteen pounds of muscle rippling in a body long enough to allow him to stand on the floor and sweep objects off a table or dresser.
At first, he had spent most of his time beneath the bed or chaise when she was in the apartment, but that open fear of her passed after a couple of weeks. Now, he absented himself only during the rare times when some of her friends were visiting her.
His behavior was exemplary even as Bastet had promised, but he remained cold and aloof, sleeping alone and barely tolerating an occasional caress of his silky head or back.
Gift considered it a major concession that he permitted that much contact. The care and consideration he received were excellent, in keeping with the divinity's assurance. He had to admit that in basic feline honesty, and common politeness required that some recompense be given for it, but chiefly, he was moved by the promise the transfigured Turtle had wrung from him. They had spoken together at length before his return, and she had pleaded so earnestly that he not be cruel to her Partner! him!-that he had in the end agreed to allow limited physical approach.
No trouble followed that lessening of his guard. Certainly, no blows came from the human's small hand, and she made no attempt to force further intimacy from him, though it was easy enough to read her desire for a great deal more. He began to feel guilty about that but steeled himself with the knowledge that she had been fully warned about what she might expect from him and had agreed to shelter him on those terms. If the human was not satisfied, well, let her bring in a kitten as she and Bastet had discussed.
Matters drifted on thus for some time, and Francie could see no sign that their relationship might better soon or at a future point. Despite her foreknowledge, her frustration grew in proportion to her deepening love for the beautiful animal.
Her heart came to close to breaking the evening she unexpectedly lost the very large sale she had hoped to close that same week. The woman sat wearily on the end of the chaise as Gift jerked away from her hand. Her head lowered, and the memory of her first sight of Turtle swept over her, a minute, orphaned kitten sprawled in a shoe box, her head and legs extended, her tiny tail sticking out behind, for all the world like the little turtles Francie and her sister had kept as children. She was sincerely glad her friend had found the happy place Bastet had described and would not wrench her away from it again for anything, but how she longed for the warmth of the little tortoiseshell's company right now. One simply could not feel like an utter failure while hugging a cat.
A failure she was, too, or so it seemed at the moment. She had let a seemingly sure sale slide through her fingers, losing the finest commission she had ever yet been in a position to earn and drawing her boss' well-merited anger down on her. As if that were not bad enough, she then had to come home only to be faced by her inability to reach the heart and gain the trust of one poor, formerly abused little animal…
Suddenly, a warm, furry cheek rubbed against hers followed by the quick rasp of a tongue.
Francie almost jerked away in her surprise but managed to control her response and raised her eyes to meet the somber, knowing ones of the black cat. "Oh, Gift," she whispered, stroking him timidly with two gently wielded fingers. "Thank you, my little friend. I did need you just now."
A rumbling purr, the first she had ever heard from him, answered that, and she stroked him again. "I don't expect you to be another Turtle. I love you for yourself, and none the less because I also loved and still love her."
The purring continued, this time a genuine rather than a forced response. Bast's Gift knew misery and unhappiness, none better, and he would indeed be cruel if he did not help Francie. She was good and certainly not worthless like she had felt herself to be. It was a pleasure for him and an honor to use his power to comfort in her cause.
If the cat did not greet his human at the door each evening after that, he did rouse himself to rub against her legs, and he gradually took to sleeping at the foot of her bed.
He also began to play, or work out, rather, with her, an advance she particularly welcomed. She had feared he might lose his sleek form and fine muscle tone if he maintained too sedentary an existence. Francie would wrap her arm in a towel or sweat shirt and wrestle with Gift, allowing him to release both energy and aggressive tension. To the black's credit, although he rabbit punched with his hind legs and used both claws and teeth to grapple with the padded arm, he never forgot himself and either scratched or bit in earnest.
For still more active sport, she used a device consisting of a short fishing rod with a string attached to its tip and a small piece of cloth tied to the cord. It provided a lively, moving target, and they battled it around the apartment several times a week in very vigorous sessions lasting half an hour or more.
Of the other toys that had intrigued and occupied Turtle for nearly all of her long life, he took no notice. Only one type of plaything drew and held him, life-sized mice fashioned of real fur. Ordinarily, Francie would have refused to have anything to do with the things, but when her sister Anna had brought one of them on her last visit to the city and Gift had reacted so favorably to it, she had swallowed her scruples and bought more of them.
She soon discovered that several were necessary. No sooner did she give Bast's Gift one than it would vanish beneath some dresser or chest from which she would then be summoned to retrieve it. When this happened for the third time in the space of an hour one Saturday morning, she gave her innocent-looking comrade a quick look. Was this the stirring of the playful mischief that should be so basic a part of a young cat's personality but which had been entirely absent from his behavior thus far?
Bast's Gift came to enjoy their time together, although he was not as yet willing to ease up any further on the guards he had set about himself. Francie seemed to be everything Turtle had said, but humans were humans. She was far the bigger and stronger of them, and there was little he could do to protect himself from her if she went into a rage against him, nothing except try to keep his heart from breaking along with his body.
It happened in the end, as he had been telling himself it must. The woman flung open the door of the apartment, and he cowered down, sick with the terror of the fury he could read and smell on her.
Francie saw the cat's body shrink in upon itself and realized what had happened. She dropped her bag and tote on the table and went to her knees near him. "It's not you, baby. You're about the brightest, best thing in this whole city, at least as it impacts on me. I was just furious with something I'd read in the paper."
Because he had never unleashed his claws on her, she braced herself and swept him into her arms despite her uncertainty as to what he might be driven to do in his fear.
The cat merely lay against her as she held him close, listening to her voice more than to her words and to that which lay behind it. His dread faded under the magic of it.
"I'd never intentionally hurt you or be mad at you, my own little friend. It's this 'Jaws-of-Life Burglar' that's got me going." Her mouth hardened. "Only now, it's 'Jaws of Death.'"
Francie did not think it strange to be explaining herself thus to an animal. She had always done that with Turtle as well. She refused to walk around in dead silence like some sort of zombie except when she uttered a command or endearment just because there was no other member of her own species present. Humans were articulate beings. They spoke in sentences, put their thoughts into words, and she felt no constraint against doing precisely that when the occasion arose, whatever her company. Indeed, since her interview with Bastet, she felt courtesy required no less from her, that she was dealing with a creature of sensitivity and intelligence, albeit of abilities and gifts very different from her own.
The cat understood her way of talking by then; her meaning if not all her words. He knew what the paper was. Every evening after supper, or earlier in the day on holidays, his care giver went through a ritual of sitting down with the thing to the nearly inevitable souring of her mood.
It was a mystery he could not comprehend. When a cat encountered an unpleasant situation, he endeavored to avoid future contact with it, but Francie continued to court distress day after day. It was an astonishing display of idiocy on the part of a normally highly sensible individual.
The woman continued to stroke him, but her thoughts drifted back to the story that had so aroused her. For the better part of a month, the Jaws-of-Life Burglar had been in the news on and off. He normally struck moderately prosperous middle-class neighborhoods, cutting screens or glass or jimmying insecure locks in the manner of most of those engaged in his profession. He apparently preferred these easier targets even as did his peers to judge by the number of dwellings ransacked in the manner characteristic of his work in his signature raids, but every once in a while, he would strike a more efficiently guarded place. The bars and gates thwarting most of his kind posed no barrier to him. He cut right through them using a Forcible Entry Tool, the implement made famous by fire and police rescue units throughout the country, or something closely modeled upon it.
Anger rose in her as it did every time she heard the case mentioned. Those tools, or the Jaws of Life as they were more commonly known, had saved countless people trapped in fires and in the twisted wreckage of vehicle accidents. It infuriated her that an invention created to bring aid in time of crisis and dire peril should be used instead by the vermin infesting the great city to wreak still more misery upon its decent inhabitants, misery and now something more dreadful.
Always in the past, the violated houses and apartments had been empty, but last night, that part of the pattern had been broken. The burglar had found the occupant at home, perhaps by his intention.
There had been no bars to delay him or to arouse anyone inside with the noise of their breaking, just a screen over a window left open to admit the pleasant evening breeze. The intruder had sliced through that without difficulty and slipped into the living room from his perch on the fire escape.
Marian Sayer, the apartment's tenant, had been sleeping in her bedroom. The police either had not known at the time of the writing or had not divulged the sequence of events that followed, but when a neighbor had investigated the door boldly left ajar by the culprit when he had gone out that way, she had found the bedroom literally coated in blood, its unfortunate resident terribly dead, dismembered, her body completely severed at the waist, by the powerful cutter. The reporter had been careful to note that no one could say at what point death had ended the nightmare for her.
At least, his sympathy was clearly with the victim, Francie thought bitterly. That was more than could be said for his associate whose editorial followed the account. That individual dwelled instead on the killer, on the inner anguish and pressures and perhaps the early physical sufferings which might have driven him to strike against either woman or society in general in so brutal a manner.
Her eyes glittered coldly. If that butcher was sick, well and good. Let him be treated medically instead of jailed if he was caught alive, but she would save her sympathy until he was either dead or otherwise so confined that he was no longer a threat. A rabid beast was not responsible for its actions, either, but it still had to be prevented from spreading its infection to other creatures.
A case without apparent motive or significant clues had to be slow in the solving, and other tragedies, other scandals, soon replaced it in the headlines and in people's minds, Francie's along with the rest as she turned her attention and energies to the living of her own life with its specific demands and interests.
The woman woke out of a fitful sleep. By the bonging of her clock in the living room, she knew it was just three, and she sighed. It was still villainously hot. There would be no relief tonight now, she thought unhappily, and none at all tomorrow according to the weatherman. That meant no relief for her. The technician would not be coming until the day after that to fix the air conditioner, if it could be repaired at all.
She heard it then, a muffled scratching sound. There was a simultaneous hiss from Bast's Gift, and the cat leapt from the foot of the bed to the stacked boxes on top of the wardrobe which formed his favorite retreat when strangers were present.
Another noise, soft in reality but clear as a trumpet call to her straining ears.
Francie's heart beat so fast and hard that it seemed louder to her than the rattle that had set it racing. She slipped off the bed and crouched in the deeper shadow near the table by the closet.
A figure loomed in the doorway, a man, nearly as big in fact as he appeared to be to her terrified eyes. The features were clear enough, but she could make no hand of reading them save that he seemed annoyed at finding the bed empty.
He spotted her, and his mouth curved. It was more like a spasm than a smile. Certainly, any pleasure it mirrored had nothing to do with joy as she knew it.
Her own lips parted in a scream that would not become audible. The intruder held something in his hands, both hands. She recognized it all too readily and stared at it with fascinated horror. The tool was the smallest of its line, but it was still enormous even without the gas generator powering it harnessed to its wielder's back. It reminded her of a great pair of pliers…
The man took a step toward her. He said nothing, and he did not take his eyes off her to look about the room. He had not come for cash or property but for another person, another woman, to rend in response to the irresistible demand of the compulsion swelling inside him. He fondled the handles of his weapon in anticipation as the Jaws spread wider.
An ebony streak shot from the wardrobe to the back of his neck. Claw-clad paws tore forward, raking face and the left eye, gouging deeply so that blood that looked black in the lace-filtered moonlight poured from the ravaged cheeks and the shredded pulp in the socket.
The killer seemed unaware of pain, at least to the extent that it did not appear to affect either his purpose or his ability to carry it through. He shook his head violently to dislodge his tormentor, and when he failed to do so, he hafted the big cutter to strike backward with it.
A second challenger hit him in that moment, a small, tortoiseshell spirit of fury who rent his hands with teeth and claws that did not merely look like fire in the dim light but seemed actually to be fire.
This time, the man gasped, the first sound he had uttered, and the Jaws clattered to the floor.
With a tremendous, jerking effort, he flung Turtle from him, tossing her hard against the wall beside them. She should have been smashed, or dazed at best, but her reactions were sharper in her new nature. She braced herself for the strike, used the energy of the blow to fire a run up the wall, thus dissipating rather than absorbing its force. The spirit cat dropped to the ground in a battle crouch, hissing fiercely, her eyes aglow with a light of their own making that would have told any sane witness the nature of the creature he faced.
Bast's Gift did not waste those precious seconds. He continued to punish the killer's head, so ripping forehead and scalp that in two places, thin strips of flesh hung from the bone. Periodically, he scored the back of the hand instinctively raised to defend the remaining eye.
Turtle sprang back into the fray, this time joining the black in going for the vulnerable head.
Francie watched in dread. The attack was definitely affecting their enemy, but he was not defeated. His hands were free, and he was lashing at his small assailants. They were both so positioned as to make difficult targets, but he would not be long in throwing them off and finishing them if he could land a solid blow, as he inevitably must soon do.
She had to stop him! Desperately, the woman groped for some weapon that could put the madman out of the battle, but only Bastet's bronze image came to hand.
She caught up the heavy little statue, suddenly deadly calm. She would have once chance, only one. Her first blow had to fall true, and it must strike with such force that it would bring and keep the big man down. It was pointless to question her ability or the ability of her weapon to accomplish that. She was without any other choice.
In that moment, Francie was filled with knowledge and the strength and control of body to translate it into action. Setting the figurine aside, she flowed to her feet.
The man's functioning eye dilated. He shook his head to clear the blood half blinding it, but the apparition before him still did not resolve itself back into his cowering intended victim. Tall, female, clad in platinum fur, it took a single step toward him.
A cat's whisper-soft paws concealed a defense of no small import, witness the work Francie's two defenders had already wrought on the intruder. Her own claws were something more, every bit as sharp as the animals' but strong and deadly in proportion to her new size. Her arm slashed out, and two scarlet geysers struck the ceiling, pumping wildly from the severed arteries of what had been his throat.
Francie sunk to her knees as the eldritch strength left her again as abruptly as it had come. Two little bodies, both trembling violently, came to her and pressed against her, seeking comfort. Fighting the shaking of her own limbs, she closed them tightly in her arms, whispering that everything was fine now, trying to ascertain all the while that they were indeed both whole.
Do not fear for our charges, Sister. They are unscathed.
The human's head turned to the statue. The shock and horror of those few, ghastly minutes just gone was beginning to grip her, numbing her so that she did not start at the sound of the familiar mental voice.
I must crave pardon, Francine, for possessing you as I did without first seeking your leave, but it was essential that I act at once. Your weapon was inadequate. Had I not seized the offensive, you might have felled him in the end, for your determination would have bought you more than one blow, but you yourself would have been gravely injured, probably to the death, and maybe these valiant ones with you.
"I-am grateful for your help." Francie made herself look at the corpse, at the gaping hole that remained of the throat, and she gripped herself with every shred of will she had left. "What-what about him? Is he being…"
The judging of human souls is not mine, yet I can state that his mind was hopelessly awry. He had no knowledge of wrong, no ability to comprehend the pain of others.
"I hope his judgment will be mild, then," she replied with a genuine charity she had not known she could muster, "milder and more just than I may receive."
She could feel the invisible entity frown. What do you say, Sister?
"You-you've saved me, Lady Bastet, and I'm truly grateful, but it may be only to face another kind of dying."
Francie shivered. "I don't know how I'm going to explain all of this. The police'll see that nothing in here could've made that kind of wound. Even if I claim I don't remember a thing, I'll be in trouble." Her eyes closed. "You must know something of humans, Lady. All it needs is one lawyer, one man or woman looking for notoriety, and I could be in jail or be subjected to an ordeal that'll strip me of everything-job, home, name." There were others to think about beside herself. "Turtle'll be all right. She'll be going back to her new place, but there could be long stretches when I won't be able to take care of Gift. He might be caged somewhere or actually suffer physical as well as emotional neglect." The woman's face, already nearly colorless, turned as white as if she lay dead beside the one the goddess had killed through her. "Lady Bastet, take him! You have to take Gift! The death weapon may be impossible to identify, but not the rest. They might put him down, slaughter him, because he attacked a human, even though it was to defend me. -Please. I know this may not follow the laws or customs ruling you and your charges, but none of what happened here's normal, either. Gift overcame all his terror of strangers to do this for me. You can't let him suffer!"
She took hold of herself before hysteria shattered her completely. "I'm human, and this was a human matter initially. I can work my way through whatever's to come of it, but, please, please, don't let my brave little friend be punished for his love of me!"
You truly believe that will happen, Sister, to you or to him?
Francie's head lowered. "It could happen. It…" She groped for words. "Our society seems more comfortable with victims, statistics, than with successful survivors. It too often punishes them as a result."
Can you imagine that I am unaware of the ways of those among whom my charges must live or that I would intervene only to leave you and yours in a state worse in its way than that from which I saved you? 1 questioned you merely to see if you yourself were aware of your continued peril. Close your eyes, Francine, for you have witnessed too much that is strange already this day.
The human obeyed. There was no sound for what seemed like many minutes, but she did not look again until Bastet told her to do so. The body, the weapon, the blood, all sign of the intrusion and battle, were gone from the bedroom, as she had no doubt they were gone from the living room and the entry window as well. "Thank you," she whispered.
It was a service I was pleased to render, my Sister. Know, too, that I do not call you that in courtesy but in fact, and few there are in all your species' history who have borne that title. Your behavior this night has gained it for you, coupled with your deep and true partnership with my little ones.
"I didn't do anything!" Francie exclaimed. "You were the one who…"
I do not grant kinship for bringing death! the other snapped. You rightly feared what would become of you as a result, and you knew I was possessed of many powers-I surely had given ample proof of that your plea was only for Bast's Gift. That, Francine of the Partners, is the measure of your greatness. "He's done so much for me," she murmured, stroking the black.
Are you still willing to do my work?
"I am, of course," she replied, surprised that the question should be posed.
Then it is time for you to bring a kitten into your life. One has just returned to me who had been so used in her first incarnation that she has lost the power to play or seek. That a kitten should be so crippled is an obscenity before nature and Those who rule her.
"You believe I can help her, too?"
I do, with the assistance of Bast's Gift and Turtle.
"Turtle?"
She refuses to leave you again.
Francie sighed to herself. Three cats, and she knew full well that this would not be the end of it. The need was simply too great. Every doctor of worth, and she, it seemed, was slated to be a healer of sorts, was doomed to be swamped with patients. She sighed again. She had never craved the unenviable title of 'Cat Lady'…
Bastet laughed. You are too much a lover of a normal life to allow yourself to become an eccentric, nor would I inflict that fate on you since it would be so unwelcome. The kitten will seem to be Turtle's young one, as if you took both in together as a result of her supposed resemblance to your old companion. Any others whom I send to you will remain only the relatively brief span of time required for their needs to be met and will not be perceptible to those with senses less acute than yours.
"Ghosts?"
You would term them that. I would rather describe them as spirits finished with one incarnation and awaiting the next. "Is Turtle…"
Turtle is a special case. She has completed the Ninefold Path. You are most fortunate in her. She will serve as your familiar and should be helpful to you in dealing both with your own kind and with others sharing this realm with you.
Francie stroked and then cuddled the tortoiseshell in delight and welcome but immediately turned to the cat snuggled in the crook of her other arm. "What about it, Gift? I'm not the only one living here. I can see that you accept Turtle, but what do you think of the rest of this proposed invasion of our peaceful quarters?"
In answer, a pink tongue rasped across her chin, and the copper eyes slitted in pleasure as the black cat purred his complete assent.