Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) (20 page)

The cat
couldn’t possibly know about any of that, though. He had been dreaming.  But
that meant this was a dream, didn’t it?  He was
still
dreaming?

No,
he thought. Not a dream. He didn’t dream. He had to be hallucinating. He’d been
hit in the head so many times now he’d lost count. But what if he’d only really
been hit once? What was more likely, that any of this was really happening, or
that he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed back in San Francisco, and all
of this was the deranged fantasy of his damaged brain?

He’d
probably had an accident. Hit by a car crossing the street. Fell in his
apartment and hit his head. Any of those things made more sense than what he
was experiencing now.

None
of this is real,
he thought. Not the talking cat, not the vampires, not the
lizard people, and not that knife the Matriarch was threatening him with now.
It was all a delusion. He needed to wake up; to snap out of this state he was
in. It was time to go back to the real world, to go back to his life.

“You are
the Destroyer,” the Matriarch intoned, raising the dagger high. “Now you will
die, and we will endure for ten thousand years.”

“Go fuck
yourself,” said Oliver. “Lizard people,” he scoffed. “You aren’t real.” 

The
Matriarch faltered, her expression looking as if she had just been slapped
across the face.  “What did you say?”

Oliver
finally shook off the two Kalatari that had been holding his arms fast, but he
no longer had the urge to run. He didn’t want to go to sleep anymore, either.
He wanted to wake up. He felt the world start to rotate once more. The sound of
rushing water was nearly upon him now. That had to mean something. “You
people,” he said. Oliver’s vision went blurry for a split second, then snapped
back into focus. He shook his head. 

“What
was that?” Jeffrey asked from behind him. He sounded worried. What had the cat
seen?

“Talking
lizards,” Oliver said. His vision blurred again. Was he waking up? The rushing
water sounded very close now. Was this madness about to end? He was going to
have quite a story to tell the doctors.

Oliver’s
vision focused and he stared the Kalatari Matriarch in the eye. “None of you
are real,” he said.

Oliver
heard the rushing water in his ears grow into a thunderous sound, a tsunami
that threatened to overtake him and wash everyone away. The world spun faster.
Whatever was happening was upon him now. Oliver shut his eyes. 

And
nothing happened. The sound of the rushing water stopped abruptly and only
silence remained. After a short moment Oliver opened his eyes, daring to hope
that he would find himself waking up in a hospital. But he was still in the old
church. One thing was different, though. The Matriarch and her knife were gone.

“Holy.
Shit,” said Jeffrey.

Oliver
looked back at the cat, and then around the church in surprise. It wasn’t just
the Matriarch who was missing.
All
of the Kalatari were gone. Only the
humans remained, looking around in shock and surprise that mirrored Oliver’s
own. The church was deathly silent for a moment, and then one of the men began
to cry.

“What
happened?” Oliver asked.

Artemis
reappeared at the door. She looked around the room sadly, and then let out a
deep sigh.

“What
happened, Mr. Jones?” she asked. “What happened is you just annihilated the
entire Kalatari race.”

“Oh,”
said Oliver. He looked around. “So…this is real?  I’m not hallucinating?”

“No,”
the girl said. “You are not.”

“I see,”
Oliver said. And then he promptly fainted.

Chapter 22

This
time, Oliver did not dream. He found that his mind was aware of the fact that
he was asleep, and he had a sensation of floating. It was as if he were lying
on a mattress suspended among the clouds, drifting gently along in the wind.
But he saw no images and had no conversations with old college professors or
cats. It was a welcome relief.

After a
time he felt warmth and realized that it was sunlight on his face. He opened
his eyes and found himself in bed in a familiar room. He was back in the
time-house he had woken up in earlier, after Sally Rain had drugged him the day
this had all begun. Sunlight was streaming through the window, with the Golden
Gate Bridge a welcome sight in the distance. He was home again. San Francisco.
But how long had he been here? 

Tyler
was sitting in a chair beside the bed, reading an issue of
Cat Fancy
magazine. He was engrossed enough in it to not notice Oliver had woken.

“Really?”
Oliver asked, sitting up.

Tyler
looked up. “What?” Oliver nodded at the magazine.  “I like cats,” Tyler said
defensively. “They just don’t like me. Not anymore, anyway.”

“I just
figured you’d be into
Canine Monthly
or something. Checking out the
centerfolds.”

“There’s
no such thing as
Canine Monthly
,” Tyler protested. “And I’m a werewolf,
not some kind of pervert. Do you actually think…” he trailed off, looking at
Oliver suspiciously. “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good,”
Tyler said. “I guess you’re feeling better.”

“How
long was I asleep?”

“Five
days,” Tyler said.

“Five
days?” Oliver asked, stunned. He looked around the room. “And you brought me
here instead of to the hospital?”

Tyler
shrugged. “Artemis said there was no need; you were just exhausted. She said
the energy required to do…what you did…would have been beyond anything we could
comprehend. Rest was the only thing that would help you.”

Oliver
rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he wanted to remember what had happened. “What
I did,” he mused. “What did I do?”

“The
Kalatari are gone,” Tyler said.

“But
it’s more than that,” Oliver remembered. “It’s not just the ones from the
church, is it? Not just the ones who attacked me?”

Tyler
shook his head. “No. It’s all of them. Everywhere. Artemis and Seven are still
working on it, but as near as we can tell, their entire race was just…wiped off
the face of the Earth.”

Oliver
had no idea how to react to that. It had never been his intention to hurt
anyone. He had just wanted to get away and go home, back to his normal life.
“All of them?” he repeated quietly.

Tyler
nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Oliver. I know that wasn’t what you wanted.”

Oliver
leaned back in the bed and rested his head against the headboard. “I’m a
murderer, then.”

“Nah,”
said Sally, entering the room. She was holding a plastic cafeteria tray with
three steaming mugs of coffee on it. Jeffrey was at her feet, looking up at
Oliver curiously. “Technically, the word you’re looking for is
genocide
,”
she continued. “You’re a genocide, not a murderer.”

“Sally…”
Tyler warned.

Jeffrey
jumped up on the bed. “How you doing, boss?” he asked.

Oliver
took a mug and stared at the black liquid inside it. He sighed. “I’m a
genocide,” he said to Jeffrey.

“Oh!”
said Jeffrey. “Okay. Hey, did you know nobody can see this house from the
outside? I didn’t even know it was here until I followed these guys inside. I
wanted to order Thai food but they said the delivery guy wouldn’t be able to
find the address. Or he might show up in the wrong year.” He looked at Oliver
in confusion. “Your friends are really weird.”

“Keep
talking, little cat,” Sally warned.

“Anyway,
it’s all over now,” Tyler said. “The Kalatari are gone. You’re back to normal,
more or less.  You have to forget about it and move on.”

“Forget
about it?” Oliver asked. “How am I supposed to forget about something like
this? It’s insane. All of this is just…madness.”

“There
are ways,” Sally murmured, sipping her coffee.

Tyler
glared at her. “Could you attempt to be supportive here?”

Sally
shrugged. “Bad shit happens. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t. Get over
it or kill yourself.”

Tyler
and Oliver stared at her in surprise. “That was being supportive?” Tyler asked.

“Sure,”
she shrugged. She sipped her coffee and looked from Tyler to Oliver. “What?”

Oliver
looked out the window again. It was a nice day. Maybe he’d go for a walk later
and get a little air. It had been a while since he’d been able to do that
without looking over his shoulder. As far as he knew, nobody else out there was
trying to kill him. He should be safe now, shouldn’t he?

He
scratched Jeffrey absent-mindedly. And what was he going to do about the cat?
Take him home?

“Am I
supposed to go home now?” he asked Tyler.

Tyler
glanced at Sally, concern flashing across his face. Sally shook her head. “Not
yet. Artemis has asked to see you first.”

“What
for?” Oliver asked.

“Debriefing.”

“Debriefing?
What am I, a spy?”

“You’ve
had quite an experience,” Tyler said reassuringly. “She just wants to talk to
you and see that you’re all right. Talk about what you’re going to do next,
and, you know, what you should say to people about where you’ve been all this
time. We’d hardly be civilized if we just kicked you into the street after what
you’ve been through.”

Jeffrey
nudged Oliver’s arm with his nose. “I don’t trust the dog,” he whispered.

“I’m not
a dog,” Tyler said.

“You
see?” Jeffrey asked. “He heard me with his dog hearing!”

“We all
heard you,” Sally said. “You don’t whisper very well.”      

Oliver
thought about it. He liked Tyler, but he didn’t believe him, either. “She’s not
really
asking
me to come, is she?”

Sally
smirked. “Artemis never
asks
anything.”

Tyler
looked apologetic. “It’s not a demand, but…”

“It’s
like when the Mafia asks you to do something? An offer you can’t refuse?”

“Yeah.”

“What if
I do refuse?”

Sally
smiled at him. “Then I’m going to hit you,” she said sweetly.

Oliver
nearly pointed out that she had already hit him, right here in this room, and
it hadn’t gone quite as she had planned. But he thought the better of it. There
was no reason to start another fight. Besides, if he was sure of anything, it
was that a meeting with Artemis would be inevitable. “I guess I should go say
hello, then,” he said.

“Aw,”
Sally pouted. “You sure you want to go peacefully?”

“Yes.”

“Well,
truth be told, I’m starting to like you,” Sally said. “So I wouldn’t have hit
you very hard.”

“Do you
ever solve problems without violence?” Oliver asked.

“No,”
Tyler said under his breath.

“What
would the point of that be?” she asked. She looked genuinely confused.

“Forget
it,” Oliver said. “Let’s get going.”

“Can I
come?” asked Jeffrey.

“Why
not?” asked Oliver.

“We’re
taking the cat?” Sally asked.

“We can
hardly leave him here,” Tyler pointed out.

Sally
shrugged. “He rides with you.”

Chapter 23

Sally
said goodbye outside the time-house and drove away in her Miata. Tyler and
Oliver left in Tyler’s Charger. Jeffrey stood up on Oliver’s lap, his front paws
pressed against the glass so he could look out the window. “This is amazing,”
he said, watching as they passed by other cars. “I don’t know how you people
take this for granted.”

“We’ve
been in cars before,” Oliver said. “So have you, for that matter.”

“I know,
but it’s still amazing.”

“You get
used to it,” Tyler said.

“You can
get used to lots of things,” Oliver said. “Talking cats, for instance.”

Jeffrey
looked up at Oliver. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“I don’t
know what I did to you or how to put you back,” Oliver said.

“Oh,
that’s okay,” Jeffrey said. “I didn’t like it at first, but now I do.”

“Really?”

“It
comes in handy. I saw a guy eating a sandwich the other day and I said, ‘Hey,
man, you better drop that sandwich!’ And he did! He dropped it and ran away!”

“Oh.” Oliver
made a mental note to discuss socially appropriate behavior with the cat at
some point in the very near future. 

“It was
a good sandwich,” Jeffrey noted. “Talking is good. And there’s the other
stuff…”

Oliver
frowned. “What other stuff? What else have you done?”

“Oh,
it’s nothing bad,” the cat said. “I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s my
brain.”

“Your
brain?”

“I
didn’t
think
like this before,” the cat explained. “I mean, I had
thoughts, but I didn’t think. Not really. And I didn’t know things the way I do
now. Or as many things. It was like I read the entire encyclopedia all at once,
before I even knew what an encyclopedia was. Maybe that doesn’t make any
sense.”

“It
makes sense,” Oliver said.

Tyler
glanced over at him.“It does?”

“Sure,”
Oliver said. “I wanted you to be able to talk,” he said to the cat. “But what
would the point of that have been, if you’d had nothing to say?”

“I don’t
get it,” said Jeffrey.

“What
would you have said if you could have talked two weeks ago? If suddenly you had
the ability to talk, but nothing else had changed?”

“I’d
have said, ‘Whoa, this is really weird!’”

Tyler
laughed. “No, you’d have said, ‘eat, eat, eat, pee.’”