order echoed throughout the underground, he caught movement where the passage veered, a sooty smudge that grew impossibly large as it came into their tunnel.
“Little man thingsss,” a deep voice snarled. Its features were still hidden by the gloom. “Where do you leave to?”
“Nowhere,” Richard replied, planting himself between the creature and the two homeless men. “And neither are you.”
A mewling hiss punctuated the air like released steam, a mocking laugh of self-assurance. Richard did not like it. The outline of the creature became more distinct as it entered the purplish light: broad shoulders and thickly muscled haunches, rounded head with stubby ears, long limbs covered in short black fur. Its large padded paws bore it silently across the floor like a prowling tiger, each languid step filled with power. Blazing from its barreled chest was a white mark like a crescent moon. The creature was alone; it was a beast that hunted alone. Richard knew what it was—had fought its kind before and had the scars to prove it—and he knew he wasn’t going to have an easy time of it now either.
“What da fu—” Al whispered behind Richard. Frozen, Walker sobbed.
“Shut up, both of you!”
The cat looked past Richard with keen interest. “Brought fresssh meat, I see.”
Richard kept his gaze firm. “Begone, cait sith.”
“No weapon,” growled the creature, grinning fangs like daggers. The cat’s ears flicked at every sound as if they had minds of their own. “You are overconfident or faithless. Both see you dead.”
“Return to your world,” Richard ordered. “This one is no longer yours.”
“And you hold no authority over me, knight.” This last word came out as a cursing spat. “I serve—”
“A master who has no authority here.” Richard braced his need and prepared for the inevitable. “Not any longer.”
Two pinpricks of sharp crimson light flared in the beast’s eyes, live embers ready to consume.
“You know not who I serve, fool.”
Richard said nothing. There was nothing else to say.
But something plagued him—something not quite right. Cait siths were cunning and intelligent but rarely spoke. They preferred lethal action to words.
What was going on? Seconds ticked by.
The cat growled low then. “You are weak. I sense it.”
“Find out,” Richard shot back.
The cait sith’s tail flicked infuriatingly as muscles bunched in knotted patterns beneath its black coat, its eyes never leaving those of the man before it. A part of Richard acceded to the creature’s insult. He was weak. He knew it. The faith needed to sustain him came and went, a light bulb with a short in its electrical wiring. Now could be a time it went dark.
As if sensing his fears, the giant cat leapt into motion, a dark blur of rippling fur and terrible promise. Giant paws clawed at the concrete, its fangs bared. Gimlet eyes bore into Richard as the hulk of muscle, bone, and fury came on.
Richard took an involuntary step back but then held his ground. The tunnel with its dead air dropped away. The screams of Al and Walker—even the cat’s growls—melted into a rush of white noise. The beast and the feral gleam in its eyes were all that remained.
He reached across the tenuous fabric between the two worlds, a call of heart that was his right—that had been bestowed upon him by Merle many years earlier.
Nothing happened.
He barely had time to react. The cat was immediately upon him, leaping with claws extended. Richard dove to the side, letting the beast fly past, his scream of fear mixed with defiance inhuman in his own ears. Searing pain flared to life along his left arm as he spun like a top from the slashing assault, knocking him backward and to his knees. He gritted his teeth and in a fluid motion turned to again confront his foe.
The cait sith bounded through a window in the brick building, melting into blackness.
Al and Walker cowered fifteen feet away—the former with a crazed look while the latter continued to weep.
A rumbling laugh filled the underground.
“Weak knight,” his enemy mocked, gone from view. “I was told you would be. I will drag your corpse back with me through the portal as a trophy.”
Richard straightened, still on his knees. He would not fail. Not while his only friends had need. Ribbons of liquid fire ran along his arm, soaking his shirt, but he barely felt the wound. A white-hot pressure arose inside, quick and sustaining, coming from the depths of his chest, mind, and even from without. It blossomed as a tingling sensation and spread