Chapter 4 - Cat Tales Part 2

The Twenty-First of November Two Thousand and Eleven. Monday.

The whole family rushed to the stairs to see the commotion. Ceri's father ran upstairs to comfort his daughter. Ceri's big brother and cousins gaped in horror at the still form of 'Monica', lying at the foot of the stairs. Accusations were thrown around and tear-stained explanations were gabbled. A picture formed between what was said and what was imagined. There was sympathy for Ceri, sympathy for 'Monica' and the calm centre of all this, even though she was terribly upset herself, was Mrs Akinyemi. Turning down offers of help from the rest of the family she was the one who went to fetch a blanket so that the deceased could be taken from the scene of the accident (that was the word that had arisen through unspoken consensus – 'accident').

The only person who hadn't seen what had happened was Lisa. She'd been outside during all this drama and for a moment had been forgotten. Nobody heard the clatter of the kitchen catflap or saw her as she padded into the hall looking for her sister.

By now, Ceri had been persuaded to come downstairs. Something like the truth had come out and while there had been mention of punishment the poor girl was so devastated that for now all anybody could do was offer hugs and comfort. It was while she was in her mother's arms that it happened.

Everybody jumped at the flurry of hissing and spitting. Lisa had arrived and seen her sister's corpse. She was consumed by fury and animal rage. As everyone shuffled to move away from the angry cat Ceri was revealed. It took Lisa a second to make the connection. This bawling child was responsible, the protective way the adults were huddling around her. This pathetic infant was responsible for the death of her sister. She would pay.

Lisa launched herself at Ceri, claws extended. Still dazed from recent events no-one was quick enough to respond. Nobody human.

Before Lisa reached the child she was knocked to the ground – by Lucia. There was a tornado of fur and screeching as the two cats fought. Ceri screamed and the tears came once again. The other children ran away – except for Ceri's cousin Amanda who held onto her mother's hand and stared at the spectacle in fascination.

Mrs Akinyemi's sons dived in to separate them. At a shouted instruction the front door was opened. The two men grabbed the two cats steeling themselves for the expected scratches. They bundled them out of the door, throwing them over the threshold. Amanda, grinning from ear to ear, slammed the door shut. Reviewing the aftermath it appeared that only Lisa had drawn blood, a single shallow scratch across the back of a hand. Mrs Akinyemi arrived with the blanket. She hadn't seen any of this. She held her hands up to stem the tide of stories crashing toward her, accounts high and low, from child and adult. There were conflicting entreaties. Get rid of the dangerous animals. Keep the fighting pets and sell tickets. Sensible, concerned grown-up suggestions and youthful flights of fancy that had been inspired by this extraordinary turn of events.

Mrs Akinyemi paid no attention to any of them. The cats were nowhere to be seen and could not be found that day or the next. But when they returned the day after that, Mrs Akinyemi saw only the two friendly moggies that ran up to her and rubbed the back of their heads against her ankles. She dismissed the tales of her family and invited them back in to be fed.

'You do know what immortal means, don't you?'

'I was angry. Regardless, the child must be made to pay.'

'You almost ruined everything. After all these countless years have you no patience?'

'No! I was once a princess in the ever-burning fire. I have eaten my last scraps! I have drunk from my last saucer!'

'It is here.'

'….'

'This is the end of our torment, sister. The Chianti Lodestone is here. This is where my spell hid it. I know that now.'

'Then let us be free! Let our plans begin again!'

'Soon, sister. The time is not yet here for the taking of our final soul.'

Lucia quite enjoyed Coronation Street. The sisters had arrived in the UK in the late 1950s and one of the first homes they had occupied had watched the venerable soap opera from its first instalment. Lisa had not understood her sister's preoccupation with such low art, but Lucia had insisted that everywhere they had stayed was somewhere that watched the programme regularly. It had irritated Lisa how on occasions they had abandoned a plush or welcoming house in favour of a less desirable abode with more appropriate viewing habits. But as time moved one and the cats moved further and further north, like so many of Lucia's pointless idiosyncrasies, Lisa learned to live with it.

Mrs Akinyemi was a regular viewer. She had a Sky+ box and usually recorded the evening's episode while she was having dinner and would then watch it later that evening as a treat before bedtime. She was not one to eat in front of the television. The late Mr Akinyemi always set the table for dinner and this was a tradition his widow continued to this day.

Lucia would curl up in Mrs Akinyemi's lap to watch Coronation Street with her. Mrs Akinyemi would find this comforting. It would turn Lucia's stomach. But Lucia knew it was necessary. It was something she never discussed with Lisa but there was something about these parochial little dramas that spoke to her on a fundamental level. She didn't know what it was until a fateful night in 1976 when everything became clear.

Lucia and Lisa had made their home among the cats of London back then. They were always treated with fear and respect by feline society. After the odd deaths of two of the families they'd adopted during their time in the capital their reputation was enough to ensure they were never challenged. But Lisa always despised her sister's soap addiction. She saw it as a weakness, this fascination with the smallest things of the mortal world. Lucia, however, recognised that it was something more. A calling, an itch, something compelling her to keep watching all these years. When she finally saw it she could hardly believe it.

The familiar opening theme played, but the titles were different. A montage of shots of the town as before, but there, near the end as the music swelled, there it was.

A cat. Just like her and her sister, a cat that was not a cat. After all these years there it was: The Chianti Lodestone transmuted into the form of an animal made of light. The same spell that made cats out of the demons also hid the Lodestone in feline form. But hid it in plain view, in front of millions of people every week.

Lucia was well versed in the art of making the real unreal and vice versa. She knew that what was needed to recover the Lodestone from its imaginary hiding place. It took some years more but eventually she pinpointed the exact location where her plans – plans she didn't share with her sister – could come to fruition.

Two months after the incident with Ceri, in Mrs Akinyembi's house on Coronation Street – the real Coronation Street in Salford – just a few doors down from the Salford Lads Club, Lucia prepared to retrieve the Lodestone. She and Lisa held the memories of the dying screams of every victim that had perished in the wake of their destructive quest. With the Lodestone back in her possession she could harness the power of those screams to reverse the centuries-old enchantment that had trapped them both as animals. A final scream from Mrs Akinyembi was all that was needed. That would come tonight.

Bedtime. Lisa stalked away from her sister in disgust. There is no trust between demons. Lisa tolerated Lucia's behaviour not out of any belief that she could rely on her. It was only her track record of success that bought her any compliance. A track record that was wearing thin these past few years. For tonight Lisa would let Lucia have this sickening time with a mortal – again – but if nothing was achieved soon there would be a reckoning.

Lucia approached Mrs Akinyembi. She was seated in her customary chair, the television was on some random channel. An advertisement for a smell was followed by one for the removal of pain. Centuries among the mortals and the ways of their world were no cleared to Lucia. No matter. She had determined the means of Mrs Akinyembi's demise tonight. It would be fire. She would recover the Lodestone from the television and then cause the screen to ignite as the power was released. At last. As Mrs Akinyembi started the recording she would begin the short but necessary recovery ritual.

Except Mrs Akinyembi wasn't starting her programme. As Lucia got closer she noticed that the television remote control was on the floor. And Mrs Akinyembi was slumped in her chair.

Lucia felt cheated. Mrs Akinyembi was at peace, but that was no use to the demon. She had depended on the fear of this woman as she expired being the catalyst to start the spell of reversal that would restore her and Lisa. The memories of all the other screams she carried with her were the fuel but a spark was needed to set them aflame.

For a second she considered the alternatives. Another house, another victim? No, this was perfect. Coronation Street on Coronation Street, the real and the hidden in conjunction. It had to be now. And that meant only one solution.

There are still superstitions about cats stealing the breath of sleeping children. Of course cats do not do this. But a demon in the shape of a cat could, just as that demon could return that same breath of life.

An extended claw picked out the correct buttons on the remote control, leaving a deep scratch with each touch. Menu; recorded; play; slow. Silently, sluggishly, the familiar images of the soap's titles began to play out on the screen. Lucia chased her tail and rolled on her back, as if inviting someone to play. This was part of the ritual of recovery and soon it received its response. The cat appeared in the title sequence only this time instead of settling down upon a roof it turned around and leaped out of the television. There was a momentary clash between the two cats, as they scrabbled at each other that was quickly interrupted by loud, shrill pop. The television cat disappeared and there in its place sat the cubic frame of the original Lodestone.

Lucia hesitated. What she was about to do would not sit well with Lisa. Then again, if she was successful the world would soon be rewritten as they wished it and any errors of judgement could be rectified then.

She climbed upon the chair and balanced its arm close to Mrs Akinyembi's face. She closed her eyes, recalling to the front of her mind the hundreds of screams she had witnessed during her journey of terror through the centuries. They were weighty things, heavy with fear. She gathered those memories and breathed them gently into Mrs Akinyembi's mouth. How many would it take to stay the flight of a departing soul?

Now Lucia began to worry. If she gambled away too much of the screams' power, there wouldn't be enough for -

Mrs Akinyembi sat bolt upright and let out a howl. A long, desperate, hope-shattering cry begging for a relief that could never come. Lucia drank it up, let it wash over her and the Lodestone and smiled as she felt the transmutation begin.

The room fell silent. Mrs Akinyembi's soul had finally departed, successfully, if painfully, escaping the feigned attempt to pull it back down. There would be more screams later, when Mrs Akinyembi would be discovered by her family. It had infuriated Lisa that Lucia had insisted on waiting to witness this. But even she couldn't help but admire the ruthless way Lucia had finally exacted her revenge on Ceri. As the distraught little girl caught sight of her deceased grandmother Lucia planted a simple thought in her head that would stay there for the rest of her life despite it being unfounded and irrational: 'This is your fault.'

When Lisa entered the living room, drawn there by the excruciating noise, she was confronted by her transformed sister, holding her hands out apologetically.

'I am truly sorry,' said Lucia. 'Something went wrong with the spell. There was only enough power to restore me. And as you can see, even that wasn't a complete success.'

Lucia stood upright as a woman, but her body was still covered in the fine black fur of her cat incarnation. Her features were human enough, perhaps a slight point to her ears and pupils that weren't as round as they could be. And she had a tail.

'Rejoice, sister!' exclaimed Lucia. 'Our grand scheme begins anew!'

It was at that precise moment that Lisa decided that she would destroy her sister, preferably sooner rather than later.

More soonliest.

Chapter 4 - Cat Tales Part 1

The Seventeenth of November Two Thousand and Eleven. Thursday.

Chapter 4 Cat Tales

Hello, my name is May. I'm Carl and Amber's big sister and I come in to this story a bit later on. I'm just popping up now to do Carl a favour. You see, he wasn't there for this next bit and so when he was telling the story he realised he'd have to make this section up. That's not really his strong point. He's very good at all the true bits, but when it came to this chapter he was coming up with every excuse under the sun not to do it. In the end I offered to write it. It's not all made up. Some of it is based on stuff we found out later on. However, there is a decent chunk of this that is just me trying to fit the pieces of the story together and make it interesting. I have no idea what really happened. I hope you enjoy the version of events that I've come up with.

Our family has had three cats during my lifetime. When I was tiny there was Trixie, who was a grey and brown tortoiseshell. For a while, there was two when Ginger (guess what he looked like) came along. Trixie was quite old to begin with and I remember being really upset when she died. She'd had a kidney infection and I cried buckets when Dad took Trixie to the vet to put her to sleep. Ginger didn't stay around much longer after that. I never saw him again so he must have gone a fair distance. I hope he was ok. Thirdly, there was Deedee who was only a kitten. She was part of the litter of Carrie who was the cat from my Mum's works. She stayed with us for a little while before she went to a permanent home with one of my Mum's workmates. Mum had never intended to get another cat. She'd been too upset after Trixie had died. But Deedee kept coming into her office and when it came time to find homes for the litter it was if Deedee had already decided where she was going.

That's the thing about cats. They choose you, not the other way around. Both Trixie and Ginger were strays. Ginger was just a nickname for the tom that kept hanging around Trixie and the house, but by the time he had decided to make his home with us the name had stuck.

You might think you've chosen a cat, but if they don't care for you they'll just move out. That's why there are so many strays. At best a cat might tolerate someone they live with that they haven't chosen if the food and lodgings are good enough.

I think Mrs Akinyemi must have been chosen by Lucia and Lisa, the demon sisters trapped in the shape of cats. She'd be the right sort of person, a widow whose children had all grown up and moved away. Not lonely by any means, Mrs Akinyemi had plenty of friends and an active social life with craft clubs and computer clubs and all sorts of evening classes most nights. But there'd be a hole in her life somewhere in that big empty home that the sisters could exploit with a well-timed show of affection.

This is how the immortal sisters had sustained themselves for nearly 500 years. In their feline forms they were as good as powerless. They could never die, but they still felt hunger and cold, still needed somewhere to lay down when the voices inside their heads were silent and they could rest. There is no kindness within these creatures. Having to feign affection in order to be taken in would be alien to them. If they weren't insane before, half a millennium of acting against their nature would have driven them mad.

Even if they had wanted to there is no way they could have stayed with any one person for too long. Their black hearts would not allow it. It would be difficult for a cat to find a way to torment or destroy a human but not impossible. Over the centuries there had been many, many accidents and fires, fatal injuries and falls. If anyone had took the time to look into the patterns they would see a very definite progression from Italy across the continent and eventually ending up in Britain. A trail of inexplicable deaths with seemingly no purpose behind them. But even as the demons gave vent to their frustrations and disgust there was a small reason behind every death. Trapped in the form of animals, they could not call upon the spells or demonic powers that they had used to hoodwink and bamboozle the town of Santa Lucia. So, painstakingly, decade after decade, they would collect the dying screams of each of their victims in their tiny cat memories. It would take them all the while until the 21^st Century for them to gather enough to reverse the alchemist's spell. They would have to recover the Chianti Lodestone that they had hidden during their last battle with Cabriatti. Long, patient work, but they had toiled for centuries before Santa Lucia to achieve their goals, they didn't baulk at the prospect of as much time passing again.

By the time they had reached Mrs Akinyemi they knew that their time was almost done. It had been ten years since they had first turned up at her back door, mewling and begging pathetically for attention. She had fed them and petted them and they had made themselves more and more at home. She'd made half-hearted enquiries to see if anyone had lost a pair of cats but she didn't look too deeply for answers. That first night that the sisters slept inside the house they knew their long wait would very soon be over.

Mrs Akinyemi had named them Phoebe and Monica. For a while Lisa had been Chandler until Mrs Akinyemi had realised that they were both female. As they strutted and purred about her kitchen, Mrs Akinyemi believed she was receiving some much-needed love from her loyal pets. She had no idea that she was being used.

In their time with Mrs Akinyemi there was one occasion when the truth of their evil was almost exposed. There had been times before, in previous households, where something had threatened to reveal something of what Lucia and Lisa truly were. It was usually soon after that the inevitable accident that forced their eviction took place. It was a little more complicated with Mrs Akinyemi. She had two sons, each of whom had a family of their own, who would visit their mother regularly – sometimes together. It was during one of these large family gatherings that Mrs Akinyemi's five-year old granddaughter Ceri started to tease Lucia.

Ceri was sat at the top of the stairs. Without instruction from anyone else she had discovered one of the fundamental truths of the animal kingdom: cats like string. This particular example had been tied to a Spongebob balloon that Ceri had been given at the fair the previous day. Spongebob hadn't lasted long when he'd got home – Lisa had seen to that. Perhaps it was some expression of resentment at this act that caused Ceri to do what she did. She had dolefully kept the string with her even after the balloon had been burst, trailing it along behind her wherever she had gone. Her father had tried to get her to leave it, to throw it away but it had been Grandma, kind, thoughtful Mrs Akinyemi who had recognised Ceri's need to mourn and had encouraged her son to let Ceri be.

It was as Ceri was leaving the bathroom that she was surprised by a sudden tug on her string. As had been the case all day, she was dragging it behind her when she felt something pull it back. That 'something' was Lucia, who in her guise as Monica had been avoiding the stifling hubbub and jollity that was going on downstairs. It was all a bit too wholesome for the average demon. She had been keeping out of the way on the upstairs landing when she saw the string worming its way past. You can't spend nearly 500 years as a cat without picking up some habits and before she knew it Lucia had pounced on the string and given it a good savaging.

Ceri soon picked up on what was going on and entertained herself by making the string – and as a consequence, the cat – dance. Lucia leapt and twisted, rolling on her back and kicking with her hind legs as she grappled with her prey. Ceri giggled at Lucia's antics, and somewhere deep inside the cat stirred feelings of pleasure that came not from hate, wickedness and destruction but from the simple joy of playing. It was because she had been weak enough to let these feelings take root that made her anger at what happened next all the more vicious.

When Lucia and Lisa formulated their evil schemes it was done with a slow, deliberate pre-meditation that ensured they got every last drop of foul satisfaction from the consequences. They enjoyed their corruption and revelled in it.

A five year old might do something wrong but that's usually because it doesn't know any better. The idea to do what she did popped into Ceri's head without any sense that it was naughty. But as soon as it was done Ceri knew she'd crossed a line.

Gradually teasing 'Monica' into position, Ceri had strategically dangled the string in order to get the cat to the top of the stairs. With perfect timing she jerked the string to tempt 'Monica'. The demon was happy to let the cat part of her take charge and she leapt for her prize. At the last second, Ceri whipped the string away and 'Monica' went sailing over the edge and in to thin air. Such was the force of her leap she missed the stairs altogether and plummeted directly to the hall floor below with an ugly thud. Horrified, Ceri looked down on the small motionless body at the foot of the stairs and began to cry.

More soonliest