The Half-Hidden (Part Eight)

By Marc-Yves Tumin

A parley of neighbors stood transfixed at the high windows opening on the garden of the DeMontmorencys. As they awaited the arrival of the authorities, they gibbered and shrieked but were quite powerless to put a stop to the brutal contest transpiring below.

It was a primordial battle hearkening to the epoch of the gladiatorial arena. There was a moment of inaction as a gargantuan dog stared down an unusually large cat with the temerity to interdict his fell intentions and then rushed in to ravage it.

The feline - a skillful antagonist but at a grave disadvantage in terms of physical proportion - feinted and sidestepping the slavering behemoth, and, as the canine passed, raked his head with his claws. Indeed, he almost made a clean getaway but was clipped by the dog's shoulder and nearly fell.

Mordred was stunned at his missed chance and wheeled about and pawed at his muzzle. Suddenly, he was impressed by his opponent's mettle. The big cat had drawn first blood.

The massy beast charged in once more, this time adjusting his approach, in anticipation of the cat's feint, before lunging at his throat. And, this time, he almost caught his quarry. However, once again, Keatsie made him miss, parrying with another cutting swipe at the cost of a blow from Mordred's chest.

Now, by all reports, Keatsie was an unusually brave soul, but, despite his success in countering Mordred's attacks, felt as if he'd been struck by a bag of bricks off a work train. He'd not yet been pinioned but had been almost bowled off his feet, and his wind had been well-nigh knocked out.

Mordred warmed to the combat, amazed at Keatsie's pluck, and relishing the unanticipated opposition. Keatsie, for his part, sought not a struggle but felt compelled to engage in it, and so stood there, marshaling his strength. Meanwhile, Mordred was in perpetual motion, veering at a sharp angle, accelerating, and bearing down on the stalwart defender.

Keatsie, though still strong, had been somewhat unnerved, intuitively realizing that he could ill afford a mistake. As fate would have it, on Mordred's next plunge, Keatsie slipped as Mordred swept by, and the Herculean slayer reached in, gripping Keatsie's shoulder and flinging him across the lawn as though he were a doily.

Mordred watched Keatsie collide with the back wall of the garden and collapse in a heap, and then turned to consummate his destruction. As he did, however, he heard a noise, and, to his surprise, saw Keatsie pull himself up and resolutely interpose himself between the child and his line of attack.

Mordred growled in anticipation as he resumed his assault. However, Keatsie, changed tactics, meeting Mordred full on and springing directly at his minatory skull. The Butcher of Manchester endeavored in vain to evade his claws, but, ultimately, was indifferent to Keatsie's exertions, savaging the intrepid interloper as if he were a bundle of rags.

There were several seconds of horripilative screaming as the marauding bullmastiff ground the furtive Night Visitor into the flagstones, then silence. Keatsie lay inert. Mordred sniffed the air, got his bearings, and redirected his attention to the girl, when, to his astonishment, he saw that the indomitable feline was still showing resistance. With one green eye gored, a leg in tatters, and gobbets of flesh hanging from his flanks, Keatsie, steadfast to the end, had dragged himself between Mordred and Danielle and stood his ground.

Shaking with distress, Keatsie panted for life, blood pouring from his mouth. And, as Mordred surveyed him, he emitted a plaintive moan, laced with indescribable sadness, not from fear that he was on the brink of extinction but from the feeling that he was about to be deprived of a sympathetic companionship, of golden hours spent in the sanctuary of the garden, of the gentle hand that had smoothed his fur while darkness gathered in the surrounding trees.

Mordred, undeterred, bore in grimly. Though grievously injured, Keatsie had the self-possession to hold his fire. At the last instant, he hurled himself at the forbidding lanterns in the figurehead of the superincumbent colossus, but was snared in the looming backswash of an insuperable power and could offer but token resistance.

There was an appalling combination of screams and snarls, and then Keatsie felt a congealing breath, a penetrating coldness, a drifting away from the moorings of life. His vision clotted in the deflected light of the overarching trees and the echo of his cry rose in farewell.

It wafted across the hedges. It floated over the wall. It soared above the northern precincts of Manhattan, traversing the great river and ascending the long hills of the Bronx, a requiescat of friendship and sufferance in the universal communion of kindred spirits.

Keatsie felt himself returning to an earlier invulnerable state. He was, once more, in the noctilucent netherworld where he'd been born. He was a baby, once again, gazing at his mother as she groomed her sole surviving kitten. And, at last, he felt no pain.

(Conclusion next week)