Again there was no response. I rubbed the back of my neck then, very carefully, lowered her small furry body to the ground. She didn’t run off, just angled her head up towards me and waited. I sighed again, louder this time, then I stopped prevaricating, plucked a small clump of her fur and swallowed it. The spasms started to rack my body immediately.
As soon as I was on all fours and the trembling had stopped, I looked for She Without An Ear. She was exactly where I’d last seen her, waiting patiently until I was ready to move. When my gaze snagged hers, she blinked slowly and I returned the favour. Then She Without An Ear picked herself up and sauntered away from me.
I paused long enough to peer through the darkness ahead, but despite what I could hear there was nothing to see in the long corridor except for shadows and gloom. I nodded and followed my cat’s swaying tabby tail.
As we padded through the maze for another twenty metres, the heavy breathing seemed to get louder. It was only when She Without An Ear stopped that I belatedly realised where the sound was coming from – and it wasn’t from this corridor. The sound was seeping through the stone from the other side of the wall to our left, and the reason I could hear it was because there was a cat-sized gap ahead.
I stiffened, then leapt over She Without An Ear and ran ahead to take a peek. The monster was in there, it had to be, but unless I’d read the Clouded Map completely wrongly this wasn’t the centre of the maze. Even with the magically mobile stone walls, we couldn’t have reached the maze’s heart.
When I thrust my head through the small gap, part of me expected to see nothing. Contrary to some beliefs, cats can’t see in true dark; there has to be some level of light for feline vision to work. That was fine in the corridor where my dropped witchlight provided a dim glow, although the light itself was some distance behind me. I doubted the witchlight would extend any further – but it turned out that it didn’t need to.
The monster was stalking the corridor that ran parallel to this one – and it was holding aloft its own witchlight. Not only that, the damned creature wasn’t alone. Trotting by its side was none other than the handsome silver Maine Coon.
I drew back, my hackles raised. I retained enough of She Without An Ear’s personality traits that my instinct was to launch an immediate attack even though I knew it would almost certainly result in bloody carnage and my own brutal death.
I felt She Without An Ear nudge my flank but Iignored her. I waited until both the monster and the cat had passed by then stuck my head through the gap and stared after them. The heavy-footed monster was taking long, ponderous steps and remained oblivious to my gaze, but the Maine Coon was a different matter.
It swung its head around and stared right at me.
I waited for the cat to raise the alarm and alert the monster to my presence but instead he gave me a slow blink not dissimilar to the one that She Without An Ear had graced me with only moments earlier. Then he turned away and continued to pad alongside the monster as if he’d not seen me.
Thoroughly confused and very, very tense, I pushed through the small gap. She Without An Ear followed. I was afraid that she’d spot the Maine Coon and dart after him with yet another example of the strange wild abandon she’d displayed during every other encounter with the long-haired cat, but she simply gazed after him then turned to me with a questioning look.
I breathed out. We would follow them; of course we would follow them. Sooner or later the right plan and location would present itself. And that was when I would attack.
As much out of feline instinct as anything, I lowered my body and slunk after the pair of them. She Without An Ear stayed behind me as we clung to the walls, where hopefully the monster would be less likely to see me if it turned around.
While the glowing-eyed bastard thumped ahead, we followed down the longest corridor I’d yet encountered. I remained on high alert, watching its every twitch and lumbering step, but even so I was surprised when the monster halted abruptly, turned to the stone wall and howled in anguish.
I froze. So did She Without An Ear. We hunkered down, making ourselves as small as possible, while the monster raisedits fists and hammered against the wall. Then it kicked the stone in frustration.
I twitched as I considered. The monster had expected a gap to be there and it was surprised that the walls had moved. That meant the maze was working against it as much as us. My whiskers quivered as I thought about the ramifications of that while the Maine Coon bumped the monster’s ankles with his head and batted its foot gently with his paw. Then suddenly the monster took off again. We followed.
We were moving much faster now as the monster strode ahead. It reached another gap in the stone and veered right. We scurried after it. After only five metres it turned left, then right again. I thought for a moment that we’d lost both it and the cat until I heard its huffing breath around another corner. I rushed to catch up and relaxed infinitesimally when I swerved through the next gap. It was still there, still within our sights.
I raised a paw as I prepared to pad after it again but that was when I realised belatedly that the Maine Coon had stopped. Rather than shadowing the monster’s every step, he had stopped by a section of wall as if he’d paused to groom itself. He paused mid-lick and gave me a long look.
I stared. There was another gap: the silver-haired cat was sitting by another cat-sized gap in the stone wall. I swallowed and he winked at me before moving on to re-join the monster.
I glanced at She Without An Ear. From the way her remaining ear was twitching, she was as fascinated by the small hole as I was. As soon as it was safe to do so, I darted forward to look through.
When I saw what was beyond the wall, my feline body went slack. It was Penelope.
Chapter
Thirty
Ihadn’t entertained the thought for even a second that Penelope might still be alive – or at least undead. The moment I’d seen her throat in the maze monster’s jaws, I’d assumed that was the end of her. Thomas had appeared to believe the same. And yet here she was, still conscious, still breathing and still very much undead.
She was in the corner of the room with heavy chains wrapped around her, which I imagined the monster had pilfered from one of Chester Longchamps’ and Alan Vennington’s sacrifices. She was leaning her head against the wall and her eyes were closed, but her chest was rising and falling regularly.
Another witchlight glowed in the opposite corner, casting an eerie glow around the large space. I frowned at the magicked bottle before averting my gaze from it and Penelope to look at the rest of the room. Doubtless this was the centre of the maze where the monster lived.
There was a raised area on one side; to call it a bed would have been overly generous, but I was certain it was where the monster slept. The shelves on another wall were littered withan astonishing amount of detritus, some of which was coated in thick dust and had clearly been there for decades. Some items were newer, but as far as I could tell they were little more than discarded rubbish that the monster must have picked up as it scoured the Understream for people to kill.
Behind me She Without An Ear released a low growl. She was right: this wasn’t the time to critique a monster’s talent for interior design. It was only a matter of time before the creature arrived. I had to act – and act quickly.
As I slid through the gap, I noticed a few snagged clumps of silver fur caught in the hewn-out stone. I ignored them for now; whether the Maine Coon was friend or foe wasn’t clear but he wasn’t my concern. My worry was Penelope.
