The Big Meow

There before them lay a wide space filled with strange differently-colored patches of concrete. Curved walls decorated with fanciful-looking flowery sculptures embraced this forecourt on either side, ending in two archways peaked with odd prickly-topped towers; each was sheathed in greened copper, and flared up into peculiar spiky crowns. At the rear of the concrete-filled plaza were bronze doors guarded by a couple of huge statues of what Rhiow at first took to be houiff — though there was something leonine about them as well, so that she was strangely reminded of the statues of Hhu’au and Sef outside the New York Public Library. Above the doors, done on a huge plaque of gray stone, was a massive curling carving of some kind of fireworm; and above it all, borne up on coral-colored columns, rose yet another high sloping copper roof with yet more spiky ironmongery cornices at the corners.

Rhiow looked around for Urruah, expecting to see him amongst the ehhif tourists, dawdling among the footprints he’d told her about earlier. But he was out of sight.

“Sidled,” Hwaith said over her shoulder. He was right: a moment later, Rhiow caught sight of Urruah under one of the huge dog-beasts, the one on the left-hand side of the doors. He had his head down, sniffing at the concrete, and his striped tail jerked once or twice as if in distaste. Then Urruah straightened, sneezed, and turned to walk back to the waiting group.

“Blood,” Urruah said to Rhiow, and looked up thoughtfully at the Silent Man. “Ehhif blood. Absolutely no mistaking it.”

The Silent Man nodded slowly. About two weeks ago, he said. It was the middle of the night when they found the body. The management were keen to cover it up. They were worried it’d be bad for business.

“Two weeks would match the dating on the merely physical scent,” Urruah said. He looked at Arhu.

Arhu, though, had his ears back in what for him was a rather uneasy expression: and he looked over at Rhiow. “Rhi, I’d rather not do an in-depth search here right now. I’d be nervous that whatever was starting to pay attention to me a few minutes ago might have more of its attention drawn here. That could make trouble for us later.”

“And he’s tired,” Siffha’h said, and bristled at Urruah. “Leave it till later.”

“Wait a minute, I’m not that tired! It’s just that – “

Siffha’h cuffed Arhu in the head, claws in. “Don’t give me that! Didn’t you just tell me that – “

“Never mind what I told you, would you just stop mommying me?”

“It’s not mommying to – “

The yowling, quiet as it was, was beginning to draw amused looks from some of the ehhif around. “Arhu,” Rhiow said. “Sif. Enough.”

Fortunately they knew that tone of voice, and stopped. Both of them immediately sat down and started washing, though in different directions.

Maybe we need a break, the Silent Man said. I promised you folks lunch. How about it, babe? He reached up again to rub Sheba behind the ears.

Sheba reached out and patted his cheek with one paw. “Did he just say the food word?” she said. “Tell him we should go to the place with the wooden back room and the table with the window!”

Rhiow passed this on. The Silent Man grinned. She’s got taste, he said. Let’s go back the way we came. It’s a few blocks further on: we don’t need the car.

He led the way at a brisk walk: and all the People fell in behind him at a trot, amused by the attention of the ehhif they passed, but refusing to acknowledge it. Rhiow, behind the Silent Man, glanced over at Urruah as he caught up with her. “Don’t say it,” he said.

“What?”

“I was fanboying.”

“For the ten seconds you spent over it,” Rhiow said, “not Aaurh Herself could have chastised you. So I was hardly going to start.” She glanced down Orchid as they crossed it and made their way past the Hollywood Hotel again. “Besides, I felt sorry for you.”

He looked at her in surprise. “What? Why?”

“Well, the circumstances weren’t exactly optimal, were they? The first time you see this place in the flesh, and you have to be all business? You’d have liked to get right down and roll around on that concrete, all over those famous ehhifs’ pawprints. Don’t deny it.”

His whiskers were twitching. “Well…” he said.

Hwaith had come up on Rhiow’s other side: he glanced over at Urruah. “When we’ve got our business sorted out,” he said, “we’ll come back here and I’ll introduce you to the backstage crowd.” He put his whiskers forward. “And the queens.”

Urruah gave him a sidelong look. “Thought I caught a few ladies’ scents up front…”