Whitley Strieber Read online

  Cat Magic

  Whitley Strieber

  PROLOGUE

  Stone Mountain is the only truly rough peak in the Peconics. Its gray, cracked ridges stretch for about three miles in that otherwise benign chain. They are so loose and treacherous that even the most obsessive rock climbers avoid them as offering too unsubtle a doom. The Appalachian Trail, deferring to the fact that old Stone has been known to slice a good pair of Beans to shreds, skirts the mountain and passes through the orchard-choked exurbia of the little town of Maywell, which huddles beneath the mountain like an Israelite at the feet of Pharaoh.

  From the grand and crumbling Collier estate at one end of town to the dark Victorian buildings of Maywell College at the other, the ridges look down on the whole of Maywell. This is not an area of superhighways and roaring commuter buses; Maywell has been bypassed by the roads and the developers. Once again, old Stone is to blame. No highway construction company would bid on a road to cross that miserable expanse of cracked granite, so Mayweli remains much as it was a century ago, a town as pretty as it can be, alone, and largely content with its own gentle self.

  Maywell prospers in a quiet way, on the orchards and the farms whose produce is trucked off to Philadelphia and New York, and on the maintenance of Maywell College, an institution small in both size and reputation, but more than adequate to provide the town its full share of raucous students and middle culture.

  Maywell does not really like the modern world. It has a tendency to look to sorter eras with well-dressed, genteel longing. It is peaceful, moral, and respectable.

  It is, in short, just the sort of place where peculiar things happen.

  These things may be grim and awful, as was the raising by Brother Simon Pierce of his Resurrection Tabernacle, or pretty much the opposite of grim, such as the witchy goings-on out at the Collier estate.

  They may be odd, as in the case of poor Dr. Walker. He was a brilliant biologist whose abrasive personality and dogged obsession with his own bizarre theories made him tiresome to his peers at Yale. Eventually, when he raved to the newspapers about bringing frogs back to life, he was hurled out. So now he continues his career in this forgotten comer of the academy, teaching freshmen the intricacies of the zygote and plotting the breakthroughs that will vindicate his genius.

  Besides its beauty and isolation and its smattering of eccentrics, Maywell has something else odd about it. This is a bit more serious. This is quite terrible and quite wonderful—if such words have any clear meaning. Terrible conjures images of huge, gaping beasts or sulking psychopaths; wonderful brings a silken princess and a thomless rose.

  Both words might conjure a cat.

  Certainly either suggests the great King of the Cats, a creature known almost exclusively to students of obscure Celtic mythology, and holding sway, according to Robert Graves, “upon a chair of old silver” whence he gave “vituperative answers to inquirers who tried to deceive him.” No doubt he/she accounts in part for the androgynous nature of Puss In Boots and was the progenitor of the first Cinderella story, “The Cat-Cinderella,” which is itself a folk memory of the very ancient legend of the cat as friend of Ishtar, the fierce old mother goddess who once swayed over Sumeria.

  Among the fragments of the old mystery religion of the Greeks is the identification of the goddess Diana with a cat. From deep time, the female witch has identified a male cat as her familiar. And, of course, there were the Egyptian cats, most of whom were mummified and persist to this day stacked in the basements of museums.

  The extraordinary creature that inhabited the ridges of Stone Mountain, though, was no candidate for a museum. Indeed, at the moment it was very intensely alive, and not out on the windy ridges, but wandering far more delightful realms.

  All was not perfect: long ago it had been touched by one of Constance Collier's spells, and something was tied to its ear.

  This was an invisible thread, which led from the delightful realms all the way into Maywell, where it joined the other invisible threads being woven on the loom of the town's life.

  The other threads turned and twisted constantly, crossing as the druggist married the grocer's daughter, slipping apart when he died, becoming knotted when she also passed on, and so on, the cloth never finished, its invisible patterns ceaselessly shimmering and changing.

  Only one of the townspeople, Constance Collier, had both the wisdom and inclination to sit occasionally at the sacred loom and maneuver the threads around a bit, perhaps granting some indigent follower of hers a little good fortune or causing the business affairs of one of her adversaries to come unraveled.

  She never touched the thread connected to the mythical cat's imaginary ear, and hadn't since she had first tied it, a deed she had done on a soft spring day when she was still full of hope. Many long years had passed since then, while Constance had plotted and spelled and hexed and waited. But she had never needed to call the cat. She had gone from being a beautiful young woman to a wise old one, and had become patient with her lifetime of waiting.

  If the thread was pulled, it would bring the cat back to Stone Mountain, and down into innocent, unsuspecting Maywell. There was, however, only one reason to do this appalling thing.

  Of late Constance had known renewed hope. There was a chance, after all, that the final chapter in a very old story would at last be written.

  Constance, Dr. Walker, Brother Pierce—three of the main characters are in place. There remains only one more, and she is already approaching the town, chugging along in her ancient Volkswagen Beetle. Even more promising, it is jammed with luggage and easels.

  An observer of the invisible could see that the particular thread that is tied to the cat's ear has wafted down and fallen across Morris.Stage Road. The old Volks wheezes, its gears grind, and it moves closer.

  Hidden breezes blow the thread about, entangling it in the lower limbs of an autumn-fired birch. Now the thread is tight.

  Closer and closer the car comes, its blond young driver peering out. There are no exit markers here. She has been told to take the third right after the big crossroads. She is counting and staring as the car sweeps into the thread. She experiences nothing more than a trickle and a sneeze, but off in the cat's realm things are quite different. The cat is dragged, howling with pain and anger, all the way to the dreary, windswept ridges of old Stone.

  For a moment nothing more happens, but that is only because the cat's eyes are shut tight.

  As the shock wears off, it blinks, then begins to gaze.

  Huge, golden cat eyes appear, hanging above an otherwise empty expanse of rock.

  The cat glares down into the weave of Maywell's life, to see what fool has dared this conjuring.

  BOOK ONE:

  Godfather Death

  The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

  The desert sighs in the bed,

  And a crack in the tea-cup opens

  A lane to the land of the dead.

  —W. H. Auden, “As I Walked Out One Evening”

  Chapter 1

  The frog wanted desperately to hop. But it couldn't hop. It jerked, then jerked again. It stayed where it was, clamped down tight. It flexed, tightened, jerked. The hot, dry hurting kept on. The frog worked its tongue. Pain. It tried to move its head. Pain. Things were piercing it. Again and again it tried to hop. But it stayed right where it was, in this hard white place with no leaves and no whirring wings and no sharp delicious bugs to wrestle from the air.

  It tried to hop.

  Still, it did not move.

  It tried. Tried. Tried.

  It hurt, it had to move, it had to hop.

  “There we go—no—hell. Bonnie, the animal is still too slick.”

  Painful, tormenting, scraping all over it
s back, hot and dry. It hopped hopped hopped.

  “Thanks. Now. . . yeah!”

  “That did it, George. The probe's well seated. I haw a good signal.”

  “Okay, Clark. Let's get started.”

  On Stone Mountain the creature—which was still only eyes—began spinning itself a cat body so it would be ready as soon as the sun went down. Two sparrows, who saw something astonishing create its own solid presence out of thin air, took flight, screaming in the silence. A raccoon stiffened and stared, and mewed. What it saw had no taxonomic classification. No, indeed, for it belonged to a rare law, this creature of mercy. Pacing now, it waited for the sunlight to rise away from the streets of the town. And suffered along with the frog.

  The frog understood nothing it saw around it. There were long strands sweeping out above its eyes. It could see every turn and wrinkle in the wires leading from its skull. But it did not understand the wires It saw them as legs, and thought of bugs.

  It liked to use its good eyes, to see sharp. Seeing sharp meant eating well. But there were no wings whirring, no fat bodies, no good scent connected with the sight of these long legs. The frog's tongue swelled with the blood of hunger. It wanted to see insects, to smell dampness, to be in green water. It wanted to hop. But it was stuck right where it was.

  “That looks like a good, steady electroencephalograph to me, Clark. The frog's normal. Not too happy, but normal.”

  “Don't let it jerk out my electrodes, Bonnie. I hate frogs. Give me something big any day.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a person, Bonnie dear.”

  “Constance wouldn't like that.”

  “No, and she doesn't like this either.”

  “You're doing it.”

  “She might not like our work, but she appreciates the alecessity, at least. That's more than I can say for the Stohlmeyer people. Sometimes I think they're secret followers of Brother Pierce.”

  “God, don't bring him up. I don't want my hands to shake while Pm working.”

  A silence fell among the three people in the lab. They all knew the eventual object of their experiment, the goal given them five years ago by Constance Collier: to kill a human being and return him or her back to life. Her goal, her program.

  But Constance didn't like all the animal killing they had to do to succeed. “I feel every one of those deaths,” she had told George. “Maybe I've made a mistake. Maybe you ought to stop.”

  He would never stop. He had pursued this goal at Yale and destroyed his career mere. He would pursue it at Maywell and drag his name up out of the mud. He was going to vindicate himself in this little backwater. One day this college would be famous because of what he had done here.

  The technician, dark, finally spoke. “Okay, folks, I'm ready to proceed.”

  “I'm set,” said Dr. Walker.

  “Bonnie, how about the audiovisual?” dark asked.

  “Up and running.”

  “Right. Here we go. Beginning the count. Five.”

  The frog felt heavy, as if it were buried in mud. Heavy and smothering. Its heart began to beat harder.

  “Four.”

  Something tickled inside the frog. It was terrible, this feeling, like nothing else the frog had known, tickling under its skin, like water spiders running there. The frog tried to move, to escape the tickling, but the weight seemed to bear down the more. Fear made its eyes bulge.

  “Three.”

  It was as if the frog were being torn apart. It had a vision of talons, of huge whistling wings.

  Death came to it then, and its heart slowed.

  The smell of water rose up around the terrified creature, then became a vision, water in darkness. The talons let go, and the frog fell into the quiet water, then it was dawn and flies were rising, and the frog was on a lily pad singing up the sun.

  “Two.”

  The dream sank to dark, and the frog felt itself falling into nothingness.

  “One.”

  The black parted, and the water dream of a moment ago lay before the frog, and this time it was real.

  The frog was free. It hopped easily to the good-smelling water, and the water splashed around it and made its skin jitter with pleasure as it dove down into a black bass pool. Reefs of tadpoles swept past and sticklebacks darted in shafts of sunlight, then the frog went up again and broke the surface amid blooming lilies.

  “We have complete termination. It's dead, George.”

  Cloaked by darkness at last, the cat began to move down the mountain. As it did, its form flickered and grew ever more solid. When it crossed the ridge, it was a shadow of a cat, a shudder in the light, a wisp of colder air. When it reached the edge of Maywell, it was a scampering, dark suggestion of something quite familiar.

  By the time it came into the streetlight at the comer of Indian and Bridge it was quite clearly an old black tomcat with a torn ear and a proud, bent tail.

  At least, that's what it looked tike. Animals and children, though, were not deceived. They sensed the true shape of this vast and terrible being, and were filled with dread.

  Atl over the town cats awakened and stared at darkened windows. Strays slid beneath porches or huddled under cars. Birds stirred in their trees and dogs at their masters' feet. Here and there a napping infant screamed. On the grounds of the Collier estate old Constance paused in her walk, closed her eyes, and entered the immense space within herself. She knew she should try to stop Tom, but she did not. George would manage, he was a survivor. And the poor frog!

  In any case, her gesture would probably be futile. Such a deep violation of the laws of life was making the cat awfully mad. Constance's interference wouldn't even be noticed.

  The black torn began his progress across Maywell, intent only on one goal; Animal Room Two, Terrarium D-22, Wolff Biology Building. He hurried down the sidewalk on the right side of Bartlett Street, past the tall homes that had housed the same Maywell families for generations, the Haspells and the Lohses and the Coxons, families whose ancestors had seen the Revolution from those leaded-glass windows, who had leaped in the springtime fields and left mandrakes for the fairy.

  The torn passed a red Mustang convertible beneath which an elderly and very arthritic tabby hid.

  The torn heard its wheezing breath, saw the pain in its eyes. Frightened of the enormous spirit it saw stalking down the walk, the tabby yowled miserably.

  The torn stopped. He lowered his head, concentrated on the neglected, dying animal before him. A sensitive paw reached out and touched the cowering tabby. I give you the gift of death, old cat. You have earned it. Instantly the tabby's body slumped. The torn watched its soul leap up like smoke into the starry sky.

  None of the tabby's fleas crossed to the torn. They chose rather to risk the cold autumn ground.

  The torn continued on its way, and everything sensitive to it took notice as they might the transit of a wendigo. As it passed the Coxon house, it brought a vision to the innocently open mind of little Kirn, the eleven-month-old baby. She began to wail in her crib. She didn't know words, but in a painful, true flash from the enormous mind that was passing, she had seen her own end, far from now in a sleek blue thing she did not yet know was called a car, in the bellowing water of a flooded river, on another autumn night. And in the prime of youth.

  Hearing the desolation in her cries, Kim's mother came into the nursery, picked her up, and clucked and sang and patted. “Oh, had a burp,” her mother said. “Such a big burp!” When the wailing passed, she put Kirn down.

  The frog found fat, lovely flies skimming along the surface of the water. It caught them, aiming with its keen eyes, darting its tongue.

  Something the frog might have called a goddess, had if known of such things, marched the water, raining desire down on the feeding bull, making it forget its feeding and follow.

  “Monitor the blood flow in die extremities. We'll wait until it stops completely before we bring our baby back.”

  The frog was jumping and leapi
ng for the green goddess, wanting to show that it was the greatest bull, the bull of bulls, huge and strong and thunder-voiced. It dove deep, shot to the surface, dove again.

  “That's the last of it, George. No more blood flow.”

  “So we can confirm one absolutely dead Rana catesbewna. . .[1]”

  “By any definition. Even the Stohlmeyer Foundation's.” “This time. Doctor, they'll accept our protocols. For sure.” “Thanks, Bonnie.” George Walker kissed her straw-sweet twenty-year-old hair. He stood to his full height, six feet of slim but fiftyish male. God, he thought, the beauty of her youth! “I have ninety seconds of null readings, Doctor.” “Good, dark. I think we'll convince 'em this time.” “For sure,” Bonnie repeated.

  And if we don't, George thought, you kids are going to be' out of Maywell State College on your tight little asses just like me. No Stohlmeyer grant means no professorship—and no assistantships either. But then again, what would dark care—he had the Covenstead to return to. Bonnie was too wild to live in Constance Collier's witch village. As for George, he kept his house in town. He had his reasons for staying away from the estate, chief among them his career. It was one thing for people to commute into New York from the Covenstead, another for them to try and work in the town.

  Any professor foolish enough to have open contact with the witches could forget things like tenure.

  If the Stohlmeyer grant ended, Constance might find George some money for his work, but the grant was the validation that the college trustees needed to allow him to continue it here. Loss of the grant meant loss of career. George could not bear that thought: he had worked so hard, and been so misunderstood.

  “Let's earn some gold, kiddies, and bring this little sucker back to life.”

  The frog heard, thrumming in the whole air, a rush as of bird wings. It was low and large, too large even to be a bird. Was it wind?

  The frog saw scud on the surface of the waters, saw the lilies tearing, saw the leaves of cypress and willow lift into the black sky, heard the thrumming rise to a scream. It waited no longer, but rather leaped for the dark, safe deeps.