Stop it, I told myself harshly, and wished that my brain had an off switch.
But it didn’t, and now it had new senses to play with. Vampire senses. And they were busy recreating the battle for me.
A patch of carpet had been ripped out, but I could tell that a mage had fallen there from an invisible splatter of month’s old blood. The residue of potion bombs had been cleaned up, but I could still see them in my mind’s eye, splashes of peppery red, the fiery rasp of battle potions; spills of vivid ozone-laced purple, the remains of reflection wards, designed to send the attackers’ own spells back against them; the clean, coolness of protection spells, which my mind interpreted as the scent of rain. Some of the latter still functioned, having dripped down the stacks to puddle on the ground, leaving bright patches of untouched flooring and pristine books next to burnt out cinders.
“After you,” the old man said, startling me, and I realized that we’d reached his office.
Or maybe it had been Mrs. Lantham’s. Because the cushion on the hard backed, wooden chair was pink paisley, as was a mug being used as a pen holder. And the picture on the desk was of a grandmotherly type with steel gray hair, chocolate mocha skin and enough padding to have mostly avoided wrinkles, hugging a boy that I assumed was her grandson.
The old man sat at the desk and consulted a sleek looking computer. He saw my surprise, and smiled slightly. “We’re very modern, you know.”
I sat on the only other chair and waited. The office was untouched by the chaos outside, either because Mrs. Lantham had had better than average wards, or because of chance. I’d been in enough battles now to know how it worked. Someone could die right beside you, but you’d be fine, unless you counted having to live with survivor’s guilt.
I found myself wanting to ask about her, suddenly, the woman who had worked here. But I didn’t. I just sat there until a big, white fluffy cat jumped into my lap, and the old gentleman looked up.
“Did you want a cat, by any chance?” he asked. “I’d take it home myself, but my wife is allergic, sadly.”
“I—we already have three,” I said awkwardly, because one of my new acolytes was a cat person, and had brought her pets with her to court.
“Yes,” he said fretfully. “It’s so difficult to find good homes these days. Particularly for spoiled old toms. He doesn’t play well with others, I’m afraid, but Emma loved him.”
“Emma.” So that was Mrs. Lantham’s first name.
The old man nodded. “We’ve been letting him stay here, and feeding him scraps from the coffee shop, although I’m sure it is a far cry from his usual diet.” He leaned over the desk. “She fed him chicken liver, you know. Got it straight from the butcher. And albacore tuna. I told the wife, that cat ate better than I do.”
He adjusted his tie. “She didn’t care for that much.”
“No,” I said, noticing the collar around the animal’s neck, with a tag that had some etching on it. “Does he have a—”
The world fell away.
I was on top of stack of books, running fast along the hard, wooden ledge, trying to get away from the fire. It burned everywhere, a constant wall of death, but there was an opening up ahead in the flames, and I jumped for it. My hind paws caught and scrabbled on the boo
ks on my new perch, sending a cascade of them falling, more kindling for the bonfires below. But I made it, moving sleek and fast, too fast for the maniacal humans below, who were laughing while the world burned around them.
I didn’t like the noises they made, or the looks on their faces. They were strange, twisted, wrong. Diseased in some way I didn’t understand.
It was hard to avoid them, though. They were everywhere, cackling and tossing fire in strange colors. But I knew every inch of this place, had been born here, under my human’s desk, to a stray she’d taken in who hadn’t lived a day. But she’d had kittens before she passed, tiny mewling things, four of us, but only I’d survived. I’d been helpless then—couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand anything but the hunger gnawing at my belly and the constant cold.
Until hands, warm and careful, had picked me up, and filled me with milk, with life. Then put me someplace where it was always warm, until I was old enough to make my own heat. And to curl up on her feet beneath what they called a desk, in a nest of old blankets she’d made for me.
She was human, but she was mother, father, and littermate to me. She was my world, and she was down there somewhere, in the darkness, among the strange fire. I had to find her. We had to leave.
I leapt to another stack, and there she was, just below. But one of the strange humans was with her. He looked young, with yellow fur and pale, ugly eyes. They weren’t the jewel tones of my own, like sapphires she’d called them, whatever those were. Or the warm brown of her own. These were like water with nothing behind it. They reflected the hues of the fires, of the lights, of the strange substance the man threw that ate right through the barrier she’d made.
It had been clear, too, until it ran with her blood, a strange, red shield that stayed in the air even as she fell, as the man laughed, as I jumped once more, but not at a stack, this time. And I wasn’t helpless any more. I cut his face, over and over, my tail blinding him as my claws savaged him, going for the ugly eyes of the monster who had killed my mother—
“Miss!” I realized that I was on my feet, clutching a cat and howling inhuman cries full of pain and rage and utter, impotent fury. The old man was staring at me, a hand up and warding even as I stumbled back.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I—I have to go.”
I fled, taking the cat with me. Nobody tried to stop me, which was just as well. I felt like I might still caterwaul at them.
~~~
I found a coffee shop in a nearby side tunnel. It was quieter and narrower than the main crossroads behind me, which served as a hub for this section of the complex. It was busy with hundreds of mages coming and going, and many more lounging around cafes and peering in the windows of shops, or staring upward at the cathedral-like ceiling high above.
Most of the tunnels were low ceilinged and claustrophobic, but not here. This area had been built in a natural cavern, and felt light and airy, helped by powerful reflectors that brought in the sun from outside and diffused it around the space. Instead of a rabbit warren, this part of the system felt more like a regular town, which had just happened to end up underground.