“I know you think me being upset about Roy killing Annie is stupid, but there’s something about it that stuck me right here.” I tapped my chest. “Did you know that my father sent me into the bowels of a Mama-Bot war machine, carrying a mini-nuke in my backpack?” Tears gathered in my eyes. “It was pink. The backpack. Not the nuke.” I laughed, a single bark that sounded just a little crazy. “My own father. What kind of person does that? What kind of person sends his little girl into the heart of the enemy?” I shook my head. “I’ll tell you what kind of person. The same kind who kills his own wife in front of his daughter just to save face, just to keep a promise and a threat.”
Spy continued to watch me, her eyes steady, unblinking. She sat tall, her front feet together and her tail wrapped around them. Regal. Like the queen she would become when Tuffs died or stepped down.
“That’s part of the reason I left the OMW after Pops died. I knew I’d infect and kill the people I loved. I was so tired of war. So tired of that macho bullshit way of life. So I ran away. To a junkyard. Running from one macho business to another. I guess I didn’t run far from the lifestyle, did I? Basically, I’m a big tangled ball of mixed-up emotions and screwed-up thinking patterns. In my own way, I’m worse than Roy.” I laughed again, that horrid broken noise, and wiped snot and tears off my face. Crying was foreign. Unexpected. “I killed Pops trying to save him. I swore I’d never transition anyone ever again, but I did when I saved Mateo. And Grant Zuckerman, because I was lonely. Did you know his bones are still underneath some John Deere tractors?” My breath hitched on a sob.
Spy didn’t respond. Her tail tip twitched once.
“I transitioned Mateo. Cupcake and Amos and Jagger. Enrico. And Tuffs, though to give myself at least a little credit, I had no idea that I could transition a cat. And Amos asked to be changed. And Jagger was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fine. I have some excuses. But”—I looked out the windshield, seeing only a square of sky—“I broke my own promises. Then there was Wanda. Alex. And now Razor, just because I wanted to show her who was boss.”
So far, I hadn’t touched anyone here except Razor. Part of me hoped she wouldn’t survive her second transition. Another part was ashamed that I had that thought.
Spy tilted her head and one ear twitched. Her odd eyes studied me.
I wiped another tear off my cheek. “I’m talking to a cat that would eat my dead body if I died. Yeah. Right. Thanks for listening. You got something to say?”
Spy dropped to one of my thighs, which were curled in the yoga position, and stood, her front paws on my chest. She lowered her head and waited.
I put my forehead to her furry, fuzzy one, and the world around me swirled, went dizzy, shifted sideways. Nausea rose, but my world stabilized before I gagged and vomited, so that was good.
In Spy’s strange greenish cat vision, which had no reds and very little yellow, I saw six clowders of cats, each clowder sitting in a tight group in a space that was mostly fog or clouds. Fog was rare enough that I knew the cat groupings were figurative or perhaps allegorical in some way that was important to Spy, but was not reality or an actual memory as I understood those things. The clowders were arranged in a circle, each led by a female, each group facing the center.
In that center was Tuffs.
There was something odd about the circle of cats, with Tuffs as the heart of their universe. In another time, with other creatures, the six points might actually have suggested a star, the kind used in magic or religion or geometry. Since it was cats, and they had indicated no affinity to magic, no religious leanings, and I hadn’t caught them doing algebra or geometry, I figured it was coincidence.
Spy sent me a picture of one group of cats getting up from the circle and walking through the fog to Marconi. It was an odd overlay of allegorical vision and reality that made my stomach roil again. Another group of cats stood and walked to Whip. Yet another group walked to McQuestion, whose hands displayed a delicate tremor, a vibration of pain. His body stank of grief. I hadn’t realized that grief had a scent. The next two groups of cats joined Bengal and Mama-Killer. Spy walked to me. In her thoughts I was identified by the smell of salmon and milk and the scuffed leather of my work boots.
I pulled my head back, breaking the close mental communication, and met Spy’s eyes. “Tuffs wants a team in each club? She thinks she can keep an eye on the bikers, can keep tabs on my . . . onourfriends and enemies. She knows they’ll be hundreds of kilometers apart, right?”
Spy stared at me in that way that meant I had stated the obvious.
“I guess Tuffs has already put her plan into action,” I groused at Spy. “That’s why all the cats are here in the first place.”
It was an excellent plan, and if a human had come up with it, I’d think it was bloody brilliant. The fact that a cat had come up with it was bloody scary. The fact that Tuffs believed she could communicate with her thralls and nest mates through such a distance was bloody terrifying.
“I can’t stop the cats from going with the clubs. But if they go, they might be used in dog-baiting events. If they go and are injured or get sick, no one will be there to set up a vet-bay for them. They could die far from home. Alone.”
Spy agreed.“Hhhhah mmm.”The sound stretched out, longer than usual, followed by“Orrrowmerow,”the sound that meantthis is a bad problem.
I figured that meant they all understood the dangers of leaving home. “I won’t be able to make the clubs agree to take cats. If Tuffs and you want to do this, you’ll have to figure it out on your own.”
Spy bowed her head again and shoved it against mine.
I saw a vision of the bikers’ Old Ladies, cats on their laps, stroking the invaders, whose tails were twitching slowly. The cats had charmed the women—black and white, young and old—and because cats could suss out who had the most power in a group of humans, they had bonded with the leaders’ Old Ladies or children. I chuckled again, and this time I almost sounded like me. “The cats have already insinuated their way into the different clubs. Figures. Question. Is Tuffs planning on taking over the world?”
Spy sent me an image of dozens of cats sitting in luxury, being fed fresh raw shrimp by besotted humans. And then a vision of Spy telling Tuffs, and then me, what was happening. “So, you’re in charge of the actual spy groups, and you intended to report back to me?” If I was understanding this right, through the cats I might have access to what was going on in all the biker organizations.
“Hhhhah mmm,”Spy agreed, and broke contact.
I washed my face, smeared on fresh sunscreen and the orange lipstick, and set my orange sunglasses in place. Opening the cab door, I leaped to the ground. Looking up at Spy on the passenger seat I said, “It’s up to Tuffs, the individual cats, and the Old Ladies.”
Spy and her clowder cats, who had been sitting on the running boards, leaped to the ground and wove around my feet. In the distance, I heard gunshots. Gently, I shut the cab door and jogged behind cover, to a spot where I could see the fortress. More gunshots sounded.
If the clubs had gone to war with each other, it would be stupid to charge in. Same if they were just shooting beer bottles. If they were killing their infected members, there wasn’t much I could do about it. “Cupcake,” I asked into my comms system, “what’s going on?”
“One of the Old Ladies pulled a knife on another one, and they ended up brawling in the dirt. Their men pulled guns and fired them into the air. I nearly had a heart attack, but no one’s dead.”
“Why were they fighting?”
