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orried about their feline friends to feel the cold.
The fighting chorus came to a screeching climax just as they rounded the corner. What had been a tense stand-off suddenly became an all-out brawl.
‘Stop!’ shouted Jaide as Ari and Kleo vanished under an avalanche of whipping tails, slashing claws and sharp teeth. ‘Leave them alone – or we’ll make you!’
‘No, troubletwisters, don’t!’ yowled Ari. ‘We can handle it!’
‘Yeah, it really looks like it,’ muttered Jaide, clenching her fists tight. What she needed to do was very clear in her mind. Already the still night air was circling breezily around her. She was certain she could do this. ‘Jack?’
Jack was already working on his own side of the plan. His Gift stirred at his command, and he felt himself ease smoothly into the darkness. It was like putting on a cloak, one he could flip and twirl at will. He raised one hand and a shadow fell across the moon. The stars remained, and so did the street light at the end of the lane. Cat’s eyes were as good as his, maybe better, so he reached out another hand and snuffed out that light too.
The cats didn’t need light to fight. They could smell each other and hear each other hissing and spitting. Jaide remembered where the two huddles were, and drawing in a deep breath she exhaled two skinny whirlwinds that shot straight into the cats, sending half of them twisting and turning through the air before depositing them at random across the garden. The cats immediately tried to get back to the fight, but Jack was ready for that.
‘To your left!’ he called, and Jaide swept them aside again.
The attacking cats howled and bared their teeth, knowing it was the twins behind this strange new development. Two abandoned the fight and rushed at them, sharp claws drawn, ready to scratch their legs. With Jack’s help, Jaide knocked them aside, but other cats instantly followed.
The whirlwinds grew stronger and threatened to get out of control, the cats ducking between the twisted gusts as Jaide flailed them around.
Something ran up Jack’s back and sank its teeth into his ear. He flailed wildly about his head, but couldn’t shake his attacker. His grip on his Gift was slipping. The whole area was flickering between light and dark, as though someone was playing with a light switch.
‘Stop this now, Jack,’ said the cat into his ear, muffled but clear. ‘It’s me – Ari. Listen to me!’
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Just get off me – let me concentrate – I can do this!’
The teeth sank deeper, drawing blood that trickled down his neck.
‘No, Jack! Jaide! This is wrong – you must stop!’
The light returned. With it, Jaide was able to get control of her two twisters, calling them back and diminishing their size. Cats leaped and jumped to get out of the way, running back to reform into a line behind the white cat, who was clearly their leader.
Kleo and the white cat faced off against one another, backs arched and fur standing upright as stiff as a brush. Kleo’s snarling seemed especially horrible coming from a cat that Jaide knew could talk like a human.
The white cat feinted to its left and lunged from the right. Jaide reacted without thinking, sending the nearest twister driving straight at it. The white cat easily dodged aside. It looked at Jaide, spat on the ground, and stalked away into the night, with its followers close behind.
With shaking hands, Jaide calmed the twisters, slowing their spinning down until they fell apart and became small drifts of unsteady air that soon dissipated.
Only then did she look at Kleo, who came towards her like an angry mother cat finally locating a lost kitten, her eyes narrowed and tail whipping furiously from side to side. The same hissing noise she had made at the white cat was coming from her throat. She looked like she was going to pounce on Jaide and scratch her eyes out.
‘Kleo,’ Jaide stammered, ‘wait –’
‘Nobody asked you to come,’ Kleo spat. ‘This is cat business! My business! Stay out of it!’
With that, she ran off, leaving Jaide staring after her, shocked and hurt.
‘What was that all about?’ asked Jack.
Ari released his ear, jumped from his shoulder, and stood between the twins with his legs spread wide and firm. He had lost some hair, but he didn’t look bothered. Not by that, anyway.
‘I tried to warn you.’ Ari’s voice was missing all of its usual rough friendliness. ‘But you never listen to me. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’
‘We’ve helped,’ said Jaide, feeling tears pricking in her eyes. Just moments ago she had been feeling proud of the way she and Jack had used their Gifts to stop the fight. ‘Haven’t we?’
‘No, you haven’t!’ Ari shouted. ‘You’ve made Kleo look as if she needs human help to fight her battles. So now she’s going to have to fight them all over again. And it’ll be even harder next time because she’ll have lost that much more respect in the pride.’
‘Like a pride of lions?’ said Jack.
Ari turned to him. ‘The proper name for a group of cats is a kindle,’ he said. ‘An old word that has been taken over by others in more recent times. But Kleo only ever calls us her pride. Does that help you understand what this means to her?’
‘I didn’t know,’ said Jaide, feeling awful. ‘I really didn’t.’
‘How could we?’ said Jack. ‘All we wanted to do was –’
‘I know, I know,’ said Ari. He sat on his haunches and licked a gash on the back of his left front paw. ‘You meant well. Kleo will understand that eventually. If she’d only told you, like I wanted her to . . .’
He broke off, as though his tongue had suddenly frozen solid.
‘Told us what?’ asked Jaide.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Don’t make us go through this again, Ari,’ said Jack.
Ari grimaced.
‘Does this have something to do with the monster?’ asked Jaide, quick to pounce on the possibility.
‘The . . . er . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Ari said shiftily. ‘Like Kleo told you, this is cat business. Some of our best cats have been poisoned in unusual circumstances, and that has made Kleo vulnerable to a power grab from outside the town. That’s where those other cats came from. They’re not locals. No one here would be so disloyal . . . unless there was no alternative.’
‘How have the cats been poisoned?’ asked Jaide, keen to move on from their mistake.
‘Through the bodies of dead rats scattered across the town. That’s how it’s getting into us. It’s powerful stuff, and it doesn’t smell bad, not when the rats are only recently dead. One taste is all it takes. That’s why Kleo’s so worried. She’s our protector, our queen; it’s her job to keep us safe. She’s been trying to find out who . . . or what . . . is behind the poisoned rats, but she hasn’t had any luck so far.’
‘That’s where you were this afternoon, when we were looking for you,’ said Jack with sudden understanding. ‘You should have said something. We might have been able to help! Remember those dead rats we saw by the old sawmill? They looked really weird. I bet they were put there for some poor cat to eat.’
‘If they looked weird, they were old,’ said Ari. ‘The trouble is the fresh ones. What cat can resist just a little taste of a dying rat that smells perfectly fine?’
‘If they were old rats, maybe they were like a test, done in secret in the old sawmill,’ Jaide theorised. ‘I bet he’s behind it – that guy, Mr McAndrew, working for The Evil . . .’
Even Jack thought she might be stretching a bit with that one. ‘Why would The Evil care about cats?’
‘Because it knows Kleo is one of Grandma’s Companions of course,’ she said. ‘Anything that weakens her will weaken the Wardens.’
‘Oh yeah, that makes sense.’
‘But Grandma won’t listen to us,’ Jaide said to Ari. ‘Will you talk to her for us?’
‘We’re supposed to listen to her, not the other way round.’ Ari got up and paced out a small circle on the back garden. ?
??I don’t see how it could be The Evil. It was repelled when you fixed the East Ward and the combined protection of all four wards fell back over Portland. It was like a door slamming shut, and now nothing of The Evil can get in. You’ve got no reason to worry on that score.’
‘Isn’t there any way it could get past the wards?’ Jaide asked, frustrated that her theory kept crashing against such a fundamental roadblock.
‘Not a chance, unless the wards are damaged again, which they haven’t been. I think you should look for a more everyday explanation. Humans are mad enough on their own, believe me. They don’t need The Evil to cause trouble for cats.’
Jack looked around the back garden, at the tufts of multicoloured fur and scratched earth. Now that the action was over, he was beginning to feel cold.
‘What about Kleo?’ he asked. ‘Will she forgive us?’
‘Give her time. Once the poisonings stop, I expect . . . I hope . . . matters will return to normal. But if I were you, I’d stay out of the reach of Kleo’s claws for a while.’
Jaide still heard Kleo’s voice, cutting through her confidence like a knife. Nobody asked you to come. This is cat business! My business! Stay out of it!
Ari came over and headbutted her on the leg. ‘When Kleo’s herself again, she’ll know that you meant well. For now you’d better go inside and get back into bed.’
‘All right.’
Jaide turned away, hugging herself, and walked briskly round the side of the house.
‘Good night, Ari,’ said Jack.
‘Good night, Jack. And remember: that was bravely done, even if it was the wrong thing to do.’
‘Thanks, I think.’
Jack hoped Jaide had overheard. He could tell that Kleo’s words had stung her. Hurrying to catch up, he found her not at the front door, as he had expected, but listening at the blue door that only the two of them and Grandma X could see. It looked black under the moonlight, and the sign hanging above it was barely legible:
ANTIQUES AND CHOICE ARTICLES FOR THE DISCERNING
The sign had been there the day they arrived in Portland, and had reappeared when the threat of The Evil had passed. They had yet, however, to see a single customer pass through the door and into the basement beyond. If Grandma X was the only Warden in Portland, it was hard to imagine the shop ever having any customers.
