The Big Meow

As if I know? Rhiow said. On a night like this, when everything’s happening at once? Ride the moment, cousin!

“Oh dear,” Helen said, “I don’t know what they’ve said to you, but I couldn’t possibly – “

“Miss Walker,” Dagenham said, coming into the room and actually reaching out and grabbing one of Helen’s hands. She started. “Please. I promised them you’d talk to them before you left. Just talk to them, that’s all. Oh, please!”

The desperate urgency in his voice was very strange. But then Rhiow thought about it, considering what kind of local political capital a climber in these particular show-business regions could make of the introduction, the “discovery”, of some new starlet. And what’s in it for him after word gets around that the ‘new starlet’ got her big break at one of his parties? He’s more sought-after than ever: every girl in town wants to get in here. Who benefits? Not him directly. He doesn’t look the type — But then Rhiow stopped herself. Whisperer dear, listen to me, I’m spending time speculating about some ehhif’s chances of sexual success! Sif’s right, it’s too perverse —!

“Well,” Helen said after a moment. “If it’s just to talk to them – ” She flicked a glance into the mirror at where Rhiow, Urruah and Hwaith were sitting. And then what? What happens when one of them offers me a contract?

Urruah flicked an ear at her. Hire an agent?

Oh, thanks a lot!

Go on, Rhiow said. There are some other things we can be looking into. And we’ll check on the Silent Man in the meantime.

“Please, Miss Walker!” Dagenham said. “They’re not used to being kept waiting – “

Helen smiled into the mirror. “Then perhaps it’s as well they are,” she said, “for a few minutes at least. If they’re thinking I’m something out of the ordinary, perhaps there’s no harm in reinforcing the impression.” She straightened, turned away from the mirror. “Shall we?”

Dagenham practically fled the bathroom, hurrying down the hall. Helen threw a glance over her shoulder at the three People, then headed out after him.

Urruah, Rhiow and Hwaith came out into the room and all stretched: being cramped up into that little space behind the toilet had left them all feeling a bit tight in the joints, psychically if not physically. “Interesting development,” Hwaith said, glancing around and wrinkling his nose at the many ehhif-scents still lingering in the hot little room.

“Not half as interesting as the one that probably brought poor Dolores here,” Rhiow said as she headed for the door and glanced down the hall in Helen’s wake. The hallway was empty; Helen and Dagenham had gone straight downstairs. “Take a moment, hear it as the Whisperer heard it with me – “

Urruah and Hwaith both went silent as they all headed down the stairs, keeping carefully to one side in case any ehhif came up. But the hallways in this side of the house were now very quiet – whatever ehhif had been here had cleared out in a hurry, most likely with the arrival of the police. Halfway down the stairs, as they turned at the landing, Hwaith looked over at Rhiow, and she wasn’t entirely surprised to see him bristling. “Are you thinking what I am?” he said. “That these ehhif are dabbling in what their kind call black magic?”

She switched her tail as she headed down the second flight of stairs, a tense “yes”. “It was so cunningly couched,” Rhiow said. “It’d be easy for a careless listener to think they were hearing somebody talk about one of the Powers that Be — ”

Urruah’s eyes were narrow as they came down onto the ground floor level. “Ugly,” he said. “The Strong Ones’, my tail — it’s the Lone One’s jackals they’re talking about!”

“Yes,” Rhiow said. “Its hangers-on, the decayed entities that suck and tear at the edges of life. They always love it when some poor deluded bunch of ehhif get suckered into thinking they’re ‘Higher Forces’ that can be called and commanded to make their lives work. No good ever comes of it!”

She was bristling too now, and it took some effort for Rhiow to calm herself. “Sorry,” she said to Hwaith. “We’ve had run-ins with such ehhif before. They’re always looking for dark places to make contact with sa’Rraah’s jackals. Too often they wind up down in the train tunnels.”

“Some of them have died of their meddling down there,” Urruah said. “Other ehhif have thought they’d fallen foul of the trains. It would’ve been lovely if it’d been that simple. Or that clean.” His tail was lashing. “But I’m thinking about something else. ‘The Great Old One’ – “

“Yes,” Rhiow said. “The Dark Lady’s friend?”

“I suppose,” Hwaith said, “the lesser hatreds wouldn’t mind latching onto a greater one, if they thought it meant a better feed…”