Black Cat, White Moon
Chapter Eleven
The Journey Begins
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Do you hear the cat within the box?
Let me rest in peace
Let me get some sleep....
So let me rest in peace....
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The Beast lay upon the floor, not moving. The agents of the Behavioral Analysis Unit who worked alongside the man known as Jason Gideon stared at the great, bleeding creature upon the floor. Like a wolf, or a panther, or a deer… some strange primordial thing melted into a great brew of fauna.
Its eyes were half-lidded, gleaming the color of an arctic wolf's but slit like a great cat's, glazed with exhaustion. Its mouth, like that of a great horse, bristled with jagged white teeth like a shark's. Its fur, like a shaggy grizzly bear, yet dark as pitch, was matted and wet. Its paws, great huge paws like a polar bear's, flexed, and in that strange, half-dead twitching, the talons of a flesh-eating vulture retracted and flashed out again, like the claws of a panther or a lion. The body of a small elephant, with the wide head of a boarhound, yet twisted with the supple grace of a great hunting cat, heaved up and down as the Beast struggled to breathe through Its snout that resembled a fat, tusked boar's.
Blood, dripping down Its sides like gushing crimson, splattered the white linoleum, so very much like the tears streaming unchecked down Razielle's ashen face.
"Uncle Jason?" She whispered, slowly creeping toward the Beast. As exhausted as the creature was, It could mistakenly think she was a threat, and lash out at her, gore her with Its tusks or rip her to shreds with Its great teeth. As quick of a healer as the cat demon was, she didn't think she could survive a mauling from such an ancient, legendary beast. "Uncle Jason?" The Night Child tried again. The creature did not move. "Please, get up," she added, a quiver shaking her voice.
The Car's engine purred like a contented cat, trying to get her attention. She glanced at it from the corner of her eye, then flicked an eye back to the snarling flames and said, "Hotchner. Get everyone into the car. Now."
The hawkish man stared at the Night Child for a long moment with unblinking eyes before turning to do as she bid him. Razielle slowly approached her adopted uncle's inner Beast, which lay unmoving except for slow the rise and fall of Its chest with Its labored breathing. Carefully, she crept through the growing pool of blood, ignoring the squelch of her boots in the congealing crimson. When she was within scant inches of the Beast's muzzle, she knelt, ignoring the way the knees of her jeans soaked up the thick, cold blood.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached out one trembling hand and pressed a gentle palm to the broad snout, between the wicked, curving tusks stained dark with blood. The Beast heaved a heavy sigh and opened Its silver-white eyes to regard her wearily, as if to say, What, O child? Must you weary me more?
"Please, Uncle Jason, get up. Please get up."
Something soft and gentle - something almost human - moved behind the mercurial eyes of the legendary creature, but the Beast did not move except to sigh deeply. It was tired, so very tired, and It could feel Its own mortality in the wounds that seeped such red stuff as Its blood. It did not wish to rise, though the kitten-child begged so sweetly. It only wished to sleep… sleep, and never rise. Never rise and answer the Challenge, never rise and engage in brutal and bloody war… never to rise to the half-visions of slaughtered innocents It could do nothing about.
"Please, get up, Uncle Jason. You have to get up, the flames are coming, and Dreaming Tiberius, please!" Razielle begged desperately. She'd only felt so helpless once before, only hours ago, when Sebastian Nox, the bogeyman known only as the Night, had been intent on murdering her romejul. Now her uncle refused to save himself after that great and terrible battle against the Dream Prince….
"Please, Uncle Jason, I'm strong, but not strong enough to move something as big as you by myself! I can't do it if you don't help me! Please, get up!"
She pushed futilely at the Beast's heavy, wet as tears ran down her cheeks, but It wouldn't budge. All she succeeded in doing was slicking her hands and arms with bright red blood and covering herself with damp, matted, shed fur.
"Uncle Jason!"
Jason Gideon, Lord of the Kiss de Carabas, King of Rachet-Upon-the-Sand, Prince of the Fiery Wings, stand up! Upon your feet, Beast of the Old Time! How dare you wallow in your self-imposed death throes, as if your lord and your ladies liege do not require your aid! Stand upon your feet, Jason Gideon! Be the Beast, and hide not from the Challenge and from the Mad Dreamers.
The Beast, at that moment, rolled Its great eye to rest upon that which spoke to It: a she-cat the size of a German shepherd. Her eyes were a deep, crystalline blue, her fur ash white. Around her neck was a strange thing, like shadows and gold thread, a collar woven like a spider's web, and just as thin as an eight-legged widow's silk.
Close behind her followed two other cats, tom cats, both the same size as the she-cat. They merely regarded the Beast with unblinking emerald and copper gold eyes. The white she-cat's cobalt stare did not waver in the least from the mercury gaze of the ancient creature.
Razielle gaped stupidly, and after a long moment, where pieces of the ceiling rained down as tiny bits of smoldering embers and glowing sparks, she managed to whisper, "Paka?"
It could not be! Not Paka the Witch, Paka the great-niece of Tooth and Claw, Paka who was her father's favorite demon she-cat besides the Lady Chaterette. Paka, who had helped the assassin learn to walk as a babe by always being there just when she was about to fall. Paka, who never set foot in the places of mortals….
"Paka?"
The cat seemed almost to smile.
Aye, Daughter of our Marquis. Where is the Lyon with Wings?
"Paka, what do you-"
"What do you mean here, Demon Cat?" Hotchner demanded, returning to Razielle's side. His chill gaze settled on the huge cats.
The she-cat, Paka, hissed as her fur bristled, and she snapped, Help the Daughter of the Marquis with the Knight Lyon, Hawking. He is injured. Does your friend and comrade mean nothing to you, Iron Claw?
"I know that!" Hotch snarled. "And never call me Hawking!" And he laid his hands upon the flank of the Beast, ignoring Paka's hiss of Hawking Iron Claw, Lyon with Wings, Vulture of Thorn….
"Come on, Gideon," Hotch snapped, planting his feet and shoving with both hands at the bleeding mass of muscle and fur. "Now is not the time to be doing this to me."
The ancient Beast snarled tiredly, like the snapping of a sleeping cat at a somewhat annoying insect, but heaved Its great bulk upwards, so that It rested upon Its great paws and could move more easily. The three huge cats padded over and pressed their warm bodies against the Beast, urging It towards the Car with purrs, nips, head butts, and yowls.
Hotch kept his hands upon the creature's flank, that inhuman thing moving behind his silver-shined eyes. Razielle tried to ignore the fierce, hawkish gaze.
Right as the group stumbled at the Car's backseat passenger door, the Beast's great body gave a shudder, a shiver, and the fur rippled and practically poured off of It like black water, pooling upon the floor in a pile of steaming darkness as the ceiling began cracking and groaning under the onslaught of the blazing flames. In the embrace of the three cats, the Night Child, and Hotch leaned Jason Gideon, seemingly human again, slipping quietly to the floor, bleeding from hundreds of battle wounds, with a silver crossbow bolt sunk deep in his right side. In his form of man, Razielle had no trouble lifting her uncle and getting him into the Car's dark, safe interior with Hotch's help.
The Car shrieked with joy and fury as it raced out of the great building, just as the roof collapsed behind it in a shower of sparks.
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Her killer instinct tells her to
Be aware of evil men....
No more blame,
He has felt too much pain....
If you're going through Hell
Keep on moving
Don't slow down
If you're scared don't show it
You might get out
Before the Devil even knows you're there
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Gideon lay upon the impossibly large furthest backseat of the Car, his head in Razielle's lap as Hotch laid his hand over the other man's heart, his eyes melting to liquid gold like a pool of sunlight in summer. Hotchner's shoulders flexed and rippled with movement, but he showed no other sign of agitation.
The three gargantuan cats lay upon the floor, their brilliant fur stark against the black matting beneath. Paka, the white she-cat, watched with eyes cool as ice as Gideon groaned in pain and opened his own.
"Sorry to scare you like that, baby girl," he whispered. "How's Reid?"
Razielle glanced at Spencer for a long moment, saw he was paler than normal, sweating, and biting his lip as if in pain. As she watched him, one of the other great cats- Lejon, a tom-cat- leapt upon the seat beside Reid and laid his great head upon the man's knee, staring up at him with great, green eyes amongst gray fur like smoke. He held himself a little less stiffly at that point, as if the pain were not so great.
"He's fine," she whispered.
"What the heck is going on?!" Garcia suddenly burst out. "What are those things?" Pointing at the cats. "What's wrong with Reid and Gideon? Who were those people who attacked us?!"
Gideon groaned again.
"Those," Razielle whispered, gesturing to the three cats, "are demon cats- not to be mistaken for cat demons. Those three belong to my father: Paka the Ivory Witch, Lejon the Sage, and Tier of the Tiger Teeth." At his name, the other demon cat, a male with pale copper fur and bronze dark stripes, lifted his head and bared his teeth.
"That's enough, beast," Hotch snarled, and the cat began to rise.
"As Daughter of the Marquis and mistress of the Car, I demand that all personal feuds be laid aside until I deem it expedient to decree otherwise," Razielle snapped without looking up from her adopted uncle's face. She stroked his cheek, wiping away the blood seeping from cuts on his face with a piece of her shirt. A bit more gently, she added, "The journey to the Cradle begins. We can't afford fights among us, not now. We're being hunted, and the Elder Ones know when we'll be caught and attacked. We must be at peace, here in the Car and through the climbing ladder."
"Climbing ladder?" Morgan whispered.
"Don't ask questions, Morgan," Gideon replied softly, struggling for even breath. "You'll only get confused. The journey begins; that's all we need to know right now."
"Well," Hotch said softly. "That and how to pull out the barb of Caligula's arrow without killing you."
"Yeah," Gideon replied, grimacing as Razielle wrapped one slim, white hand around the shaft. "And that. I'm braced," he added, and she ripped the bolt from his side, spraying blood all over herself, as the car hurtled towards the Cradle.
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And though the paths that I have traveled
Have tread against the flow
There is no need for sorrow
For I am coming home
Can you hear the cat within the box?
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Author's Note: okay, revamped chapter, new stuff and new lyrics. This chapter is almost 3000 words, so hope you like.
Copyright Info:
Section1, line 1: Love and Hatred, by the Cruxshadows
Section 1, remaining: Rest in Peace, from Buffy the Musical Episode
Middle section, lines 1-2: Pretty Girl by Sugarcult
Middle section, lines 3-4: Not Like the Other Girls by the Rasmus
Rest of middle section: If You're Going Through Hell by... somebody?
Last section: Return (I Am Coming Home) and Love and Hatred by the Cruxshadows