Authors: Zoe Marriott
The barista shook her head, put the phone back on the hook and smiled at the woman. “How can I help you today?”
The customer stepped over to the counter, already rummaging in her handbag. “Sorry, I zoned out there for a second. Can I have a large, double-shot cappuccino to go?”
Within seconds both women were back in their routine, acting like nothing had happened. That, even more than the eerie noises of the animals as they edged towards us, made fear quiver through my body.
“Is there another way out of this place?” Shinobu asked, easing to his feet.
“Must be,” Jack said. “Fire regulations and all that.” She shoved me out of the booth in front of her, giving me one second to shove the katana back into its carrier on my back before she grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
Shinobu took my other hand in a hard grip. The pair of them hauled me out of the cafe area into the narrow aisles between towering, haphazardly stacked bookshelves, Shinobu in front, Jack half a step behind. The overhead lights weren’t enough to fully illuminate the shadows back here, and the smell of dust and damp paper made me sneeze.
“I’ve never seen that many cats before,” I said breathlessly. “Where did they come from?”
“The Nekomata,” Shinobu answered, voice grim.
A moment later I heard a glassy crash behind us. The bell above the door jangled discordantly.
From the corners of my eyes, I saw dozens of small, sleek shapes flashing into the stacks around us. My ears filled with dry, papery, rustling sounds. I whipped my head around and caught sight of yellow and green eyes glowing everywhere in the shadows between shelves.
Overhead, piles of books began to shift. Scraps of browning paper fell down like dirty snow. A tattered Mills & Boon paperback fluttered past me, almost grazing my nose. An Agatha Christie mystery bounced off Shinobu’s arm. Jack dodged a massive, leather-bound Reader’s Digest of Myths and Legends.
“Look out!” Shinobu shouted. He hauled me forward, and I yanked Jack after me, just managing to avoid a landslide of back-issue magazines that filled the aisle. A large, black cat dropped into the space ahead of us, its back arched, hackles raking up as it growled. More felines landed behind it, adding their voices to its threatening song.
Shinobu whipped a massive encyclopaedia off a shelf with his free hand and winged it at the cats. The black one went flying and the others scattered.
“Ouch!” Jack kicked out without breaking stride and two more cats went sailing away. “I’m not into animal cruelty but if any more of these little buggers try to claw me I’ll turn them into earmuffs.”
I ducked to avoid a falling Stephen King and saw a green glow ahead, to the left. “There’s the fire door!”
Another pile of books toppled over into the aisle ahead of us. Shinobu turned and caught me around the waist, lifting me effortlessly over the obstruction. I had to let go of Jack or have my arm wrenched out. Jack scrambled over the books with a muffled “Oof!”, landed next to me and zoomed in front. She grabbed the metal bar on the emergency door, forcing it down. An ear-splitting wail sounded.
“Getting really sick of sirens!” Jack shouted as Shinobu and I shot through the exit. She slammed the door shut behind us. There were several heavy thudding sounds and a couple of yowls.
We stood in the narrow alley that ran behind the shop, catching our breath. Windowless, graffiti-covered walls closed in on either side. Most of the space was taken up with a huge industrial skip that overwhelmed the fresh, bready smells drifting from the bakery next door. The concrete made sticky noises underfoot.
“Actually, that was kind of fun,” Jack said.
I gave her a blank stare. “I don’t like you any more.”
She stuck out her tongue.
“How far is it from here to the house?” Shinobu asked, sounding tense.
“Ten minutes’ walk,” I said. “Why?”
Shinobu pointed. On top of the overflowing skip, a trio of cats was creeping into view.
This time it was me who swore. The first of the cats pounced. Shinobu spun away. It hit the wall where he had been an instant before.
We scrambled out of the alley on to the familiar road. Overhead, heavy, brownish-grey clouds pressed down, turning the afternoon as dim as twilight. People hurried by with their heads bowed and their eyes firmly fixed on their feet.
“Hostiles at twelve o’clock,” Jack snapped out.
“What does that mean?” Shinobu and I asked in unison.
“Cats straight ahead! You idiots both need to watch
Top Gun
.”
“Run for it!” I yelled.
As we pelted down the road, cats of every colour, size and condition leapt down from walls and rooftops, flying at us with savage hisses and sharp claws. Shinobu ploughed straight ahead, forcing them to scatter or be crushed. I put both arms over my head, grateful for the thick fabric of my coat, and jumped and swerved wildly, trying to avoid them. Next to me, Jack was kicking like Jackie Chan on ten cans of Red Bull, knocking out would-be attackers by the dozen.
Every time I looked up I expected to see bystanders staring at us in shock or filming our antics on their phones. But even when I charged into a couple and accidentally knocked the woman’s briefcase out of her hand, no one else seemed to see what was going on. Their eyes just flicked over us and then away, as if we weren’t there. It was terrifying. We could be eaten by feral cats right in the middle of the street and
no one would notice
.
We swerved round the corner, and I felt a dizzying flood of relief as I caught sight of my own front door. I shoved my hand into my pocket, wrenched out the key and flew up the stairs, passing Shinobu. As I fumbled with the lock, Shinobu yelled behind me. A huge marmalade tom – a cat which belonged to one of our neighbours, and which I had known all my life as a lazy, friendly pet – flew out of the bush next to the steps with a tearing growl and went for his throat.
Jack seized the cat’s tail in midair and whipped it away into the street.
“You are very fast,” Shinobu commented, sounding impressed.
“Ten years of karate,” Jack gasped. “I wish I could say the same for Mimi, though. What are you doing? Picking the effing thing?”
The lock clicked and we all piled inside. The moment we were in, I threw the door shut, snapped the deadbolt and locked it again. Jack sat down on the bottom step of the stairs with a thump and Shinobu leaned against the door. There was silence except for the harsh sound of our panting.
“You know what?” I said. “I am never asking my parents for a kitten again.”
A
door slammed at the back of the house. Feet stomped heavily towards us, sending
Tyrannosaurus Rex
vibrations through the floor.
“What time do you call this?” Rachel erupted into the hallway. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you call and let me know where you were and – and what the hell happened to you?”
She rushed forward, anger melting into shock and concern as she saw the ragged, dirty state of us. She knelt on the bottom step and cupped Jack’s face carefully between her hands. “You’ve got a black eye.”
“Get off, Rach!” Jack tried to brush her sister away and was firmly ignored.
“Start talking. Was there an accident? Did you get mugged?”
“Um…” Jack rolled her eyes desperately, and I noticed for the first time that there really was a dark, purplish shadow forming around her left eye socket. It must have happened when she hit the motorbikes. I supposed I’d been too busy to take stock before.
“Yes,” I said, quickly. “Or, rather, not really. There was, like, a street fight, and we walked into the middle of it. We got a bit beaten up. The police—”
“The
police
?” Rachel shrieked. The sound echoed off the high coving and made us all wince, including Shinobu, who was standing motionless at the door.
Rachel paused, cleared her throat and began again. “Let me dial that down a notch. OK. What about the police?”
“Jack called them, and they came and broke things up and then took us to the hospital to get checked out. We’re both fine. But Jack lost her phone – and it totally wasn’t her fault,” I added. Jack gave me a grateful look. I went on, “By the time I remembered to check mine we were practically home anyway so it didn’t make sense to call and freak you out. Sorry.”
“Oh God,” Rachel moaned.
“Don’t stress,” Jack said, her voice a bit muffled by Rachel’s grip on her cheeks. “I had x-rays and I’m in perfect condition, honest.”
“You don’t understand. I’m going to have to tell Mum, and Mr and Mrs Yamato.”
I began hastily: “I don’t think that’s a great—”
“Why couldn’t you both have glued yourselves to the couch and watched TV until you turned into drooling, emotionless drones, like the rest of your generation?” Rachel said, reproachfully.
“You don’t have to phone anyone,” Jack said quickly. “You heard Mimi. This wasn’t a big deal.”
Rachel finally let go of Jack and sat back with a sigh. “Nice try, kiddo, but getting mixed up with the police and being taken to the hospital
is
a big deal. Don’t worry – it’s my skin that’s going to get roasted, not yours. You’ll probably have to save up for a new phone yourself, though.”
“Curses,” Jack said, though I could tell she was secretly relieved that Rachel seemed to be on her side.
“Ach, I need caffeine before I start phoning people. Come on. I’ll make you both a cup of tea.”
She stood up and headed back towards the kitchen. Jack flicked a look at Shinobu, then raised her eyebrows at me.
What do you think?
I shrugged.
She wasn’t
that
distracted. I definitely don’t think she can see him
.
Shinobu cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Rachel-san?”
Rachel kept walking without any sign that she had heard him. I sighed, not sure if I was relieved or disappointed. It was definitely easier not to have to explain why there was an armed warrior-boy trailing around after me, but at the same time, we had to do
something
with Shinobu, and it was going to be hard to work that out, long-term, if no one else could see him.
“Oi,” Rachel called. “Get in here! I want to keep my eyes on you two delinquents.”
“Coming!” Jack called, jumping up and hurrying forward. I followed more slowly.
“Let us smooth Rachel down a bit,” I whispered to Shinobu. “Then we’ll head upstairs where we can be private and talk.”
Shinobu nodded and slipped into the kitchen behind me, positioning himself against the wall by the door in his bodyguard pose. I perched nervously on one of the breakfast stools at the central island next to Jack, who was already back to her normal self.
“That’s like punishing me for being attacked,” she was arguing. “You can’t punish the victim, sis.”
“Tell Mum, not me,” Rachel was saying patiently, as she set cups out on the island in front of us. “I’m not the one who’ll have to shell out to replace it.”
The kettle was boiling in front of me with a homey, rumbling noise. I looked around – at the pale-green walls that I had helped Mum paint and the little pots of herbs on the windowsill that Dad was so proud of growing – with a sense of being in a dream. Even the faint smell of coffee and hand cream, so much a part of home that I normally barely noticed it, seemed unreal. The world was suddenly askew. I was out of place in my own house. My own skin.
We almost never saw this place again. We almost never got home today
.
I sucked in a deep breath, distantly aware that Shinobu was standing alert by the kitchen door, looking around. Probably waiting for me to signal to him what to do next.
I don’t know, Shinobu. I just … don’t
. Rubbing my hand over my face, I took another couple of deep breaths, trying to wriggle my skin back into its proper place.
Jack was still going on about her mobile phone. “If anything, I ought to get rewarded for being a good citizen and calling the police. Right, Mimi?” She appealed to me as Rachel moved behind us to open the fridge. “If Mum makes me pay for a new phone out of my own money, I’ll turn into a troublemaker for sure.”
“Like you aren’t already,” Rachel said, rummaging around for the milk.
I seized the distraction and reached into my pocket for my own phone. “Maybe it’s not lost for ever. If someone picked it up, you might be able to get it back.”
I forced myself to focus on the phone display, selected Jack’s number from my contacts and pressed “Dial”, then I lifted the phone to my ear.
“Yeah, right. You must be crazy if you think that – er – anyone who was around there would hand it in.”
“You never know. It’s ringing.”
The tinny sound of Jack’s ringtone – “Take My Breath Away”, from that cheesy
Top Gun
film – rang out. It took me a minute to realize that the noise was in the room. In the kitchen. With us.
Me and Jack stared at each other.
“What is the matter?” Shinobu asked, sensing my sudden fear. I couldn’t answer.
I swivelled round on the stool, following the sound to its source.
Rachel slowly straightened and eased the fridge door closed. She turned to face us, her right hand creeping into the pocket of her cardigan. She pulled out Jack’s phone. The plastic case was battered and grazed, as if something had tried to chew on it. “Oops.”
“Rachel?” Jack whispered.
“Sorry, Jacqueline. I needed it for the scent trail, you see. And the cats had to know who to chase and where to chase them to.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack’s voice had gone shrill. “How did you get that?”
“No time for questions now, kiddo. Big sister has some business to take care of.”
Rachel looked at me. Her grin stretched wider, wider, splitting her face in half. Rows of razor sharp teeth gleamed behind her lips. “Told you I’d be back,” she said. She dropped the phone, and her hand shot towards me, fingers elongating as black, obsidian claws burst out of the skin.
I spun on the stool, my outstretched arm scattering the mugs on the island as I seized the kettle. I threw it instinctively, with no time to aim. The pot hit Rachel squarely in the face. Boiling water and hot steam sprayed over her. She let out a high-pitched screech, falling back against the fridge. The ringtone cut off.