NINE

“Breathe this in.”

Smoke curled from the shallow stone basin thrust under her nose, the grey plumes rising towards the high ceiling lazily. Alley was once again in the large empty space Strange called the Ritual Room. It was bare of anything but a large circle of white crystal that was imbedded in the oak floorboards.

Usually, it was just her and Strange, but today their routine included Wong. Wong was consulting a large tome bound in dark leather, frowning as he looked between her and pages. Obediently – because there was no real alternative – Alley leant over the basin and inhaled the smoke. She began coughing immediately, the thick acrid smoke making her throat close. Between her painful hacks, she glared at Strange balefully. He watched her impassively, but as she bent double with the force of the coughing fit, a glass of water appeared beside her. She reached for it, but another tickle in her throat caused her to cough and gag as a ball of phlegm flew from her mouth and landed between them. To her surprise it was a pale pink colour. The painful need to cough stopped immediately.

Wong let out a loud, frustrated groan that made her jump. He glared at her pointedly as he shut the book with a definitive snap. “There is no ‘pink’ in the book.” He told Strange.

Strange tilted his head. “At least we know she’s not a daemon.” Wong’s jaw jumped.

Alley grinned widely at him. “Sorry, Wong!” She said cheerily, and he growled something under his breath, tucking the book under his arm and striding from the room. The large double doors swung shut behind him. She turned to Strange. “Do you think I can drive him to an aneurysm?”

Despite the disapproving look on his face, his lips twitched. “No. I’ve tried before. He just gets more…”

“Boulder-like?” Alley offered, taking a sip of her water.

His lips twitched again, but he shook his head and got to his feet. “Come on, kid. You can have a sandwich, then there’s something else I want to try.”

Alley followed him to the kitchen, the only other room she was allowed to enter. The kitchen was at odds with the rest of the Sanctum; modern and sleek, rather than old and ornate as much of the rest of the large mansion was. Like every day that had passed since Strange had kidnapped her, she sat at the far-right stool at the marble counter, and waited for Strange to pass her a sandwich. It was always peanut butter and jelly, and it was never cut. Then, he would sit in the far-left stool and watch her eat. When she finished, he took her plate and it disappeared. Alley always wondered how much energy it took to magically wash dishes. She never asked him how he did it.

Today, however, they didn’t return to the ritual room. They didn’t go back up to the attic either.

Unease prickled at her as Strange led her down a corridor she’d never seen, past a set of closed stone doors, carved with the same symbol on the skylight in the attic. Something tugged at her gut as they passed, and she was unable to hide the way her eyes lingered. “Keep it moving.” Strange said, steering her away by the shoulder. They passed through a grand foyer, complete with black and white tiles and a large double staircase much like the one at Thain’s mansion. To her surprise, they began to head up the stairs.

As she crested the staircase, she became aware of a distant thrumming. It was similar to the hum that she had heard from the Idol and the Bell, and instinctively, she turned her head towards it, feet guided by an inexplicable force.

It took her a few moments to realise Strange was no longer beside her. She paused, suddenly uncertain, turning to look at him. He was watching her, face impassive, hands folded in his navy sleeves. The door in front of her was closed and as she tried the handle, she half expected it to be locked. Astonishingly, it opened.

The humming increased until it was almost deafening.

Inside, the room was filled entirely with artifacts. She could see swords, armour, hats, a skirt, a statue of a dragon, several locked boxes, a plethora of vases and crockery, the Bell – so many things, it was as if she was in museum’s storage room. She stepped over the threshold, head swimming with the sound, with the pull.

“You can sense it. The Magicks here.” Strange wasn’t asking a question, but she nodded anyway. His voice seemed very far away. “Tell me what you are feeling.”

Alley was moving again; she couldn’t seem to help it. “It’s-it’s like…I can hear them. They want- I want to-” She shook her head, “It’s like magnets.”

She rounded the top of the stairs, passing a large round window, a set of ribbed locks, another case. There was something different now; a soft siren’s call, higher than the demanding low tones of the other artifacts.

It was-

The song she could never quite remember, the touch of a hand to her brow, the scent of her mother’s skin. It was the sound of her sibling’s laughter, the proud curl to her father’s smile. It was all the warmest things she knew. Had known.

She had paused in front of a glass cabinet. Inside, a rusted half-circle of metal sat latent and wanting. She was crying, she realised belatedly, hot tears sliding down her cheeks and blurring her vision.

“I will protect you all night, like the moon.”

“And then, when it is morning, I will protect you all day, like the sun.”

“But you didn’t.” Alley – Alice – whispered back to the phantom voices. Her head was splitting, and the scent of pine and frost and blood was back. Everything was coming back. “You’re not here, and I am alone.” Strange was saying something – but she couldn’t focus, couldn’t hear over the lullaby.

The rusted artifact called to her.

Alley Cat, Alice, whoever she was, reached for the cabinet. As if in slow motion, she watched as the glass exploded outwards, a thousand glittering shards refracting impossible light through the room. Strange was yelling, but he was lost to the sound of voices, countless female voices, crying out. The rusted metal was no longer there; in it’s place, a brilliantly gold collar emblazoned with a lion’s head shone. She had a moment of sudden clarity; the metal burnished so clean she could see her own reflection.

Whatever was happening was meant to happen.

Stephen should have known.

The girl stood calmly in the eye of the small hurricane around her. The whole room was trembling, the Artifacts shuddering and twitching in their cases, and around the girl, the glass of the shattered case swirled and danced. Heart in his throat, he threw another half-hearted summoning charm at her. As with his last four attempts, the purple-hued charm bounced ineffectively off the vortex.  

He should have never brought her here.

The Aegis of Bastet had been at the Sanctum since before his arrival, gathering dust and rust in the very back corner of the Artifact Room. Resistant to any magic of men, even the women of the Order couldn’t make much of a dent on the ancient energy surrounding it. From what they could tell, it offered protection from magic, as well as produced magic of its own. Of course, none of the Scholars or Sorcerers had been able to activate the abilities they assumed would be associated with the Ancient Egyptian deity.

Until today. Until this tiny slip of a girl.

Stephen tried to move forwards again, but this time, the Cloak tugged him back. “What?” He snapped at it absently, eyes on the girl’s hand. It was raising slowly towards the Aegis, and he watched in fascination as the rust flaked off, revealing previously unseen symbols and hieroglyphics. The Cloak pulled at him again, this time hard enough to take him to the far end of the room.

And not a moment too soon.

With a pop like pressure dropping; a surge of blackness exploded from the Aegis and the glass vortex burst outwards, sending shards flying. He watched helplessly as the Aegis consumed the girl. Her body was taunt, cast in what looked like shadow. And then everything went quiet.

The girl dropped like a stone to the floor.

The Artifacts were still once more, the unnatural storm gone.

He shouldn’t have- shit, was she dead? Again?

This time, his Cloak let him hurry towards her.

She was sprawled at the foot of the cabinet, eyes closed and breathing shallow. He felt something in his chest relax at the sight. Although – considering the impossible miracle in the alley, he wasn’t sure if her death would have lasted for long anyway. He crouched beside her, attention diverted from her still face to the rest of her. She was in a short-sleeved t-shirt, and so he was able to see her thin arms. Underneath her skin, it was as if something was wriggling, threads of black and gold – not veins, but something similar – was winding over and through her. Carefully, pulling a protective charm over his own hand, he touched her arm. As if it could sense him, the threads faded into her olive-toned skin. Around her neck, something sparked brilliant gold, and he realised with a start that a necklace with a heavy pendant – was that the lioness’ head? – had appeared. This time when he touched it, he felt a sharp pain shoot up his arm, despite his protective charm.

“Incredible.” He breathed. His voice seemed to rouse her; she took a deep shuddering breath and her eyes fluttered open slowly. She looked…different. It took him a moment to work out exactly what it was; but as her eyes focused on his face, he realised. The unusually bright green of her eyes was changed, threaded through with impossible gold. “Are you alright, kid?” he asked, leaning back as she eased herself into sitting.

“What- what happened?” She asked. He blinked; even her voice seemed different.

“Well…” He deliberated, “I think the Aegis…well, it seems you were chosen.” She looked uneasy, and he watched her flex her fingers. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was small. A faint frustration filled him. The breakthrough of centuries had just occurred – and it was because of a child too young to comprehend the magnitude of what she had done.

“Are you injured?” He tried again, eyeing the new smoothness of her skin. She still looked too thin; but at Thain’s party she had looked emaciated, and when he had taken her in, her face had been red and chapped from the cold and wind. “Do you still sense-”

“I don’t know, okay?!” Her voice had taken on a different tone, and she slammed her fists down beside her in a childish reaction to stress. The thud and crack of the wood splintering made them both pause. Where her fists had landed, the wood had completely given way.

That is…interesting.

Alley stared at her fists.

What was happening?

A sudden loud noise behind her made her jump and whirl. It was a distinct scuttling that reminded her of the robots, and she was on her feet and alert in one smooth, impossibly quick movement. There was nothing there. It sounded again, and she searched the room, eyes zeroing in on the dark space between the beams of the roof.

There was a spider on the wood.

And she could see it clearly. As she watched, it began to move again, that same scuttling sound coming clearly. And now – she realised – she could hear other things. That low thudding wasn’t her heart… she looked at Strange, eyes falling to his pulse point. She could see the pulse at his neck, beating beneath his skin, the rush and bellow of air in his lungs, the thunder of his heart. Outside she could hear traffic, loud as if she was beside a formula one racetrack, and every snowflake – and it was snow, she could smell the ice from here – was a drumbeat on the roof. She could see the pores in Strange’s skin, every grain of wood, the particles of dust dancing between them-

Alley slapped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes as the sensations built and built and built and built-

“What’s wrong?”

Strange’s voice was impossibly loud, and she could hear Wong humming somewhere, and faintly, Beyonce’s Halo, and she could hear someone cough outside, and she could smell Strange’s cologne, and she could smell the jelly and peanut butter she had eaten and-

Something began to race up and down her body, a hot wave, a feverish sensation – and the overwhelming world faded away.

Strange must have knocked her out again.

She wasn’t unconscious though. She wasn’t dreaming.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

It was like seeing the world normally – albeit still with impossible clarity and focus. It was just less…overwhelming. And yes, she could still hear everything, but she was able to zero in on Strange’s heart again, the other distractions fading away. It was racing now, picked up into something like fear.

She looked at him, taking in his surprised expression. Just as she had zeroed in on the tiny spider before, she looked at herself in the reflection of his wide eyes.

Alley recoiled.

So did the small, reflected figure in black fur.

“What-”

“What-”

They spoke at the same time, Alley raising her hands in front of her face. They were – like the rest of her body – covered in what seemed to be a pelt. It was black as midnight, and she could feel its softness. Around her wrists, thin bands of gold sparkled gently, and she ran her hands down her front. There was another, thicker band of gold encircling her entire neck and finishing on her chest, and she traced the outline of the lioness head sitting in the centre of her collarbones. Another band wrapped around her hips, around her ankles. Her face seemed equally covered, but it had not glued itself to the shape of her as it had everywhere else. All she could think to explain it, was as if someone had stuck a lioness shaped helmet on her head. She touched the small ear nubs on the top of her head, stroked down the angled muzzle, tapped at the cat-eye shaped thin gold over her eyes.

“I don’t understand…” She said, noticing the new smoothness to her tone with an odd nausea. “What is this?”

Strange looked troubled. “Kid, you’re going to have to tell me who you are.” His tone was grave.

The pelt hadn’t gone away.

Alley sat awkwardly at the marble counter in the kitchen, trying to ignore all the competing scents coming from the fridge and pantry. Just an hour ago, she had been eating a sandwich and plotting her escape.

Strange was watching her.

She cleared her throat. Everything in her was screaming to keep her secrets. Tom was going to be so disappointed in her…

But she had to know.

She had to know what, why, this was happening – and if the wizard thought her name was the key to understanding, then she had to- she had to tell him.

“I’m-” She tried, taking an anxious breath. As if responding to the panic rising inside her, she watched as the gold bands around her wrists began to widen, slowly sliding and solidifying up her arm. It only made it worse. “I’m- my name is Alice. Alice A-Akilah Tybalt-Nefertari.”

“Nefertari…” He repeated, looking at her with a sudden clarity. “Are you Egyptian, Alice?”

“Don’t call me that!” She snapped at him, irrationally angry at the sound of her name, hands tightening around the edge of the stool. Strange nodded slowly, and she realised she had broken through the leather cover. A few bits of fluff from the padded cushion drifted to the floor. What was happening to her…?

“What should I call you then?”

“Alley. Alley Cat is what T-” Alley shook her head, cutting herself off. Shut up, shut up, shut up! She was being stupid – her fear was making her stupid, vulnerable. For the first time since they had gone into that horrible room, a faint amusement lit up Strange’s face. “What?”

He shook his head, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “I have to do some research. I think – and I can’t be sure – but I think the Aegis has assimilated to you. I just don’t know why. Perhaps-”

His voice faded into nothing.

The Aegis.

All of a sudden, she was not in the kitchen. All of a sudden, she was back under the Christmas tree, watching blood soak her carpet. A high, terrible laugh-

“I want what you took from me.”

“Where is the aegis?”

“Bastet’s Aegis.”

“Alley Cat?”

Alley looked up sharply. Stephen was looking at her, with a concern she had never seen before. A cold was settling over her, and with it, the warmth of the pelt – the Aegis – faded. This time she was able to watch it; watching as the gold melted into the fur, the fur receding from her skin, up and away, until it was entirely gone, the thick gold at her neck gone too. It was as if it had never happened at all, but a necklace she didn’t recognize was sitting innocently on her chest. She lifted it, and it sparkled once in the light, like a conspiratorial wink. Alley dropped it.

“I’m feeling a bit tired.” She offered Strange a smile, affecting her best, most polite tone. “May I go and rest?”

He blinked, clearly caught off guard. But Strange was not Tom, and he wasn’t her father. He wasn’t even her friend – and he obviously had more pressing matters to attend to. She had no doubt the mystery of the Aegis was weighing on him more than anything to do with her. “Uh, yeah.” He said, and turned slightly to open one of his portals. The orange sparks were a now familiar sight, and she stepped towards the red papered room that appeared in the centre with a faint relief. “Alley,” She turned, looking back through the portal to Strange. He was frowning. “I will work this out.”

“I will protect you…”

Another empty promise.

Alley smiled at him, and felt the frost and tasted blood in her mouth. The portal closed, and she was alone in the room. Her smile faded, and she turned to the window. The shutters were still closed, but there was a new confidence coursing through her, and she remembered the way she had punched through solid wood and broken the chair, and flexed her fingers.

The shutters gave way like toothpicks, and she tossed them behind her, tearing them from their hinges. The window shattered with one blow of her fist, her hair blown back by the rush of icy air coming through, and she could see with her new, improved vision that there was a near invisible gold barrier like the one on the doorway.

Alley clenched her jaw, and shoved at the barrier. This time, the warmth of the fur was welcome, and she watched as the pelt swirled over her, forming a shield between her skin and the spell. All too easily, Alley climbed out of the window.

New York stretched before her, freedom and snow in her lungs.

I’m coming home, Tom.