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  Prologue

  This Star is Not in the Sky

  Have you ever noticed that those who practice the mantic arts are not happy unless they are telling you about it?

  In fact, they are happiest when they are telling you about you. Whether you want to hear it or not. Especially when you most particularly do not want to hear it.

  This is my very situation with Karma, our landlady's more than somewhat strange resident cat. I do not deny that Karma has a certain "talent," I simply am not sure that it is psychic. True, our recent Halloween adventure at the haunted-house attraction did seem to produce a presence that could have been Karma. Still, I am not ready to agree that the will-o'-the-wisp of light that I saw on those occasions was some incendiary projection of a Birman cat with pretensions to prognostication.

  I have been thinking long and deep on the situation (that is what I am really doing whenever I appear to be "resting") and I have concluded that the dancing dollop of candle power I saw could have as easily been a spark from the pipe of the English gent who turned up in the Ghost Parade. That Doyly dude in tweeds and overgrown eyebrows with the checkered cap. The British do like their patterns.

  Their preferences in that direction even run to calico and tiger-stripe cats. I of course am like Jackie O when it comes to fashion taste: I never wear patterns. Being born with a superb coat of shiny black hair that needs only an occasional shake and the lightest of licks now and then is another advantage. In case my moniker of Midnight Louie has not tipped you off or you have been in Tibet for the first half of the nineties, my appearance is a symphony in subtle black, with the white in my whiskers and the truly elegant green of my eyes keeping the rich simplicity of my daily garb from being a tad dull. Not that an undercover operator like myself would not stoop even to dullness to guarantee a low profile when I am investigating a case.

  But I am off duty now for the holidays, and enjoying the simple life: loafing about the Circle Ritz apartment I share with my little doll, Miss Temple Barr. Not that she is any good at loafing; she is too young, in human years, to appreciate the pursuit. No, she is all bustle on her three-inch shivs--those high heels she prongs around on. I must admit that she is a bit deflated since the death of Darren Cooke. It was ruled a suicide, but I can tell that Miss Temple is not happy with that likelihood. I can only describe her as moping. In fact, she is so unnaturally sober and quiet these days that I would welcome a nocturnal admission of Mr. Mystifying Max. He is a magician whether he works at it or no, and likes to make surprise appearances, usually in the dead of night.

  Ordinarily, I do not cotton to interlopers, and Mr. Max Kinsella is a territorial guy on top of it. I doubt that we would get along if forced to associate for any period of time. Miss Temple Barr is my roomie now, since Mr. Mystifying ran off like a scalded alley cat with no notice or explanation a year ago. What you leave is mine, if I want it. And I have nothing to complain about in the accommodations Miss Temple Barr has put at my disposal. The bathroom window is always ajar, a narrow, burglarproof invitation to the open road. (Though with Las Vegas's growing resident population and almost fifty mil of tourists ankling through day in and day out, open roads are pretty hard to find around town.) My bowl is always piled high with the latest tempting garnishes to the plain Jane Free-to-be-Feline health food lurking--untouched--beneath. And I have an emergency facility under the bathroom sink should I care to get clay litter under my nails, instead of the sandy desert dirt of Las Vegas.

  Since I am recuperating from some minor surgery incurred in my last case, I am not minded to hop out the window for a night on the town. (Luckily, thanks to a bizarre twist of fate and despite extreme attempts to pare me down to the size of these petty, ultra politically correct times, I am still the same larger-than-life macho dude you know and love.) And Miss Temple Barr is out for the evening. I hope that she is out with Mr. Matt Devine. Him I could put up with, if he did not hog the covers. Unfortunately, I do not believe that even Miss Temple has explored Mr. Matt's sleeping habits. These humans are annoyingly slow with their mating rituals!

  I understand the need for maturity and caution nowadays, as felines are subject to AIDS also, but I could give Mr. Matt Devine a tip or two about courting the female of any species. First, you show up and refuse to go away. Then you put up with the customary repeated brush-offs. Persistence is the name of the dating game. Finally, you wait until she is not looking and jump her, sinking your fangs into her neck . .. well, maybe human dudes can forget the fangs unless the lady is partial to vampires. I must admit that it is all over in a few seconds, which is why we feline dudes try again . . . and again . . . and again. Persistence wins lady fair every time, although she may yowl and slap your face when it is all over. Dames!

  I am musing on the dating game when I hear one of the several French doors to the patio rattling. We are on the second floor and safe from all but the most agile cat burglar. Still, I am home alone and all my senses go on alert. In my invalid condition I am not ready for fisticuffs. Might pull out my stitches in a delicate area.

  So I wait and watch, ready to make some really nasty noises if an unauthorized party breaks in. I am not worried that it might be Mr. Max Kinsella; he never announces his imminent arrival with any vulgar noises. Actually, we have a lot in common when you come to think of it--black hair, a way with the ladies, slightly felonious intent and a possessive nature--which is probably why I cannot stand the guy.

  While I wait I speculate on who, or what, might be broaching my retreat. This is how to keep an active mind even when the body is in full sloth. I have ruled out: the seasonal overnight delivery service with Christmas presents for Miss Temple; the pizza guy; the big ole palm tree outside dropping one of its leaves with an anticlimactic shudder like a stripper doffing her last pastie.

  Now I hear a not inconsiderable weight launched at the door. Or kicking the door. The force was applied very low to the ground. A door-stomping burglar. This could be serious. Guys with no regard for the delicate fretwork of a fifties-vintage glass-and-wood French door would do anything, including stomping the petals off the begonias on poor Miss Temple's patio. I recall when my little doll was assaulted in a parking garage by some thugs the size of Godzilla. Are they paying my lovely mistress a midnight call? They will get more Midnight than they planned on.

  I snick out all four sets of shivs, hearing the satisfying rip of surgically sharp nails into the canvas covering of Miss Temple's sofa. My recuperation has meant that I have not been wearing my feline edge down to a dull nub with street wanderings. I am twenty pounds of thorny, snarling, growling pussycat, and if I am not quite as formidable as Kahlua, the magician's panther, I am a close second. I prepare to leap high when the door is broached, and go for the eyes.

  Finally the door pops ajar. I know how rickety those old locks are from my own surreptitious comings and goings.

  I leap into the air like a heavyweight butterfly, prepared to sting like a manta ray, a big black winged shape at one with the darkness, yet darker still than night, and out for blood ... the Hooded Claw!

  It is an imposing attack, and it is launched at empty air. Nothing. Nada to a Chihuahua. Nil. The Big Nothing. Nowhere.

  I twist to make sure I land shiv-first, and snap my switchblades to "safety." I return to earth like a sack of potatoes with bunions.

  On top of the intruder.

  Which is pale and soft like some huge spider-creature.

  And which has blue eyes.

  Uh-oh.

  And which is hissing and cursing me in some very ripe language.

  "Louie, you obnoxious unbeliever!" she finishes up. "Why did you not help me open the door? I have ruined my best nails trying to break in."

  I roll away as fast as a dude
in my delicate condition can manage it. "I thought you could just sort of. . . leak in, like mist or daylight."

  "Only under special circumstances, like psychic emergencies. And the stars are not right. All Hallows' Eve is long past."

  "I can read a calendar all by myself, Karma. So what brings you out of your hidey-hole in the penthouse suite?"

  Her blue eyes blink and water at the faint night-lights Miss Temple leaves around the place for my nighttime convenience, though I think it is mostly for her own peace of mind.

  "You do this all the time?" the Birman babe asks, in tones that are either admiring or disbelieving. "Fighting the plant life and the railing and then ... leaping to the lower balcony. Oh, it was too awful. And however shall I get back up again? Miss Electra Lark will be so shocked to find me missing."

  "If you are missing, how is she going to find you? Do not worry, I will escort your Psychic Self back up. You should avoid the physical world like the plague, and stick to the hoodoo-voodoo stuff, doll. Your coat is a mess and you look a little wobbly on the pins. You definitely are not dressed for breaking and entering."

  She shakes out her cafe-au-lait fur coat, then smooths her white gloves and gaiters into apple-pie order before deigning to answer me.

  "If you knew how difficult it was for me to leave my refuge and find you . . . gratitude is not one of your virtues, Louis."

  "Cut out the 'Louis' stuff. You are trying to make me sound like an uptown cat when I have always been a downtown cat. My name is Louie as in King Louie the Umpteenth and in Crab Louie and in the rock 'n' roll classic song 'Louie, Louie.'"

  "The various kings of France called 'Louie' spelled their names 'Louis.' The French merely drop the last consonant when pronouncing the name."

  "No wonder the French beheaded their kings! Poor old Louie the Sixteenth! If the French are that careless about dropping the terminal s on a classy moniker like Louie, what difference will chopping off a reigning monarch's head make? At least they had the pronunciation right, and in my book that is a lot more important than getting the spelling perfect."

  "Getting the spelling right is very important in arcane matters," she retorts with a sniff, one of those effete little purebred sniffs that implies access to a gourmet brand of catnip. "And that is why I braved the awful out-of-doors and performed a most dangerous balancing act to come down and tell you my latest news hot off the crystal ball."

  I shake my head. A five-week-old kitten could make its way down two floors at an old building like the Circle Ritz, which drips with "architectural details"--stepping stones to my breed--like a black marble Christmas tree decorated in bric-a-brac.

  "I cruise the Internet with Miss Temple myself," I put in with a yawn. "That is where all the real action is these days. So what tricks is Miss Electra Lark's big green-glass globe up to?"

  Karma settles onto her haunches, tucking her forefeet under like a yogi, or a swami or some Oriental pundit from Siam. (I understand that we are supposed to say "Asian" nowadays, but "Oriental" has a ring to it I cannot give up, and I do not see why political correctness must edit the language of words that make a nice singsong yowl in the conversation. Certainly my usage has ruffled the ineffable Karma's fur, for the pale hair-tips seem to glow in an unseen aura.)

  "I am channeling a new ancient. Ever since my psychic exposure, through you, to the forces at the doomed Houdini seance, someone impossibly old has been trying to come through."

  I shrug, and her enormous blue eyes whip to my twitching shoulder blades. Blazing out from the dark brown that masks her face, them there eyes are pretty potent.

  "I have finally found out who I am dealing with," she announces. "Someone incredibly old. Unfathomably powerful."

  "Bob Dole?" I quip, the recent election having been decided by a landslide for Socks Clinton, a personal buddy of mine, on account of I saved him from running away from the will of the people and abdicating his First Cat status. And he was the First Cat in the White House in a long, long time. It sets my mind at ease to know that Bill Clinton's ear is purred into nightly by the real power behind the presidency--Socks himself. Hillary is just there as a front-woman to take all the flack.

  Karma waits for me to stop grinning, then says, "Bast."

  "No need to swear at a little political humor," I say.

  "Bastet," she adds, using the ancient deity's full, formal name.

  "Sssst!" I hiss. "You do not wish to take that particular honcho's name in vain. Or honchette, I guess I should say. I have met the lady, and this is one goddess you do not wish to hiss off."

  "I know. Bast and I have had many conversations about you."

  "Me? What is there to talk about, except my ancient lineage that goes back all the way to the Pharaohs? Through the maternal line, of course."

  "Bast was most pleased to hear that you have reformed your alley-cat ways. The choice may not have been free but at least the neutering operation was."

  "Listen. There is nothing neutered about any part of me. I did not have your usual back-alley procedure, you know. This was a VIP-level operation in every respect. This doctor dude has worked on Schwarzenegger and Stallone. I have not lost a thing. Not one thing! And not even two. It was all done with lasers and lipo. You want to see my scars?"

  She shuts those blue-lightning eyes for a weary moment. I suppose that when your soul is older than the Hollywood hills, the concerns of ordinary beings are paltry things. But then, my concerns are never paltry, b.o. or a.o. (Before Operation or After Operation).

  "So you have been rendered sterile but remain virile. Interesting, but hardly the coming thing. I understand you still leave your odorous 'marks' around the place, still get into immature fisticuffs and still play the Romeo. You will have to undergo many more lives before you can progress to another level of development."

  "I do not want to progress! I want to stay right where I am, doing what I am doing. Eating, drinking and making whoopee."

  "I am afraid that this is exactly what you will not be able to do for the immediate future. That is why I am here, to warn you."

  She shakes her sagacious Birman head. For the first time I notice a tiny gold ring against the brown of one eartip, and I admit I get the shivers. The last cats I have seen so decorated were mummified models wrapped up in gauze so tight that they resemble two-thousand-year-old bowling pins.

  Her head tilts so the earring catches and ricochets back the night-light glow. "A mark of favor from Bastet. Poor Electra is quite confused about when she took me to the mall for a piercing. Mine, unlike yours, was a psychic procedure, and performed by the goddess herself with her own Sacred Fang."

  I swallow. I am glad that I am not in Bastet's favor, if she is going to staple-gun my ears for the privilege. Besides, I do not wear any sissy earrings. I even disdain a simple leather collar, and certainly those new, Day-Glo jobbies that are elasticized like a brassiere or something. Supposed to be a safety feature, but I personally think they are designed to make a normal dude look like an idiot.

  "So what is going to happen to me? Nothing like knowing the future to give a person a nasty sense of impending doom."

  "Oh, it may not be doom in store for you, Louie. Merely a sudden, long trip to a far, alien place more strange than any you have seen before."

  "I am going to be kidnapped by extraterrestrials? Those bug-eyed grasshopper guys who haven't heard about needle safety regulations? They might mess with my altered state. No way. Besides, the only saucers I like are filled with brandy Alexanders, not grasshoppers."

  "Such an imagination." Karma almost smiles, save I have never seen a cat smile yet. Maybe grin a little when no one is watching. "But you have been earmarked for a great role in the affairs of the day."

  I do not like that "earmarked" idea and feel one of mine twitch. Ever since my involuntary surgery, various extremities have developed nervous tics. I know, I know. Nothing was lost. But it was close. If Miss Savannah Ashleigh had not been so dumb as to take me to her personal surgeon, I cou
ld be singing falsetto with the rest of the "retired" boys in the band right now.

  "Do not growl, Louie." Karma stretches her limousine legs, then arches her back and rises. She is big enough to tower over me. "Change is not necessarily loss, but opportunity. See that you take advantage of the ones soon to come your way. Now. Can you see me up to my room?"

  She makes it sound like a little gentlemanly escort duty, but it is more like baby-sitting. Turns out this babe is afraid of heights, and going up is a lot worse than coming down. Our return is supposed to be discreet, but that is hard to achieve when it takes an occasional claw-prod in the posterior to keep her moving up the facade of the Circle Ritz, which has suddenly become as black and slick and smooth as a frozen lava wall. But she bites back any yowls of protest at my herding technique and I finally goad her over the patio railing into Miss Electra Lark's territory again.

  "Even Bast's psychic surgery was kinder than your ministrations, Louie. Was such rudeness necessary?"

  "Rule One in Advanced Climbing Technique: keep moving or drop dead."

  With that blunt summary I leave her.

  Bast's earring winks at me as I turn to head back down.

  Maybe the goddess--a pretty hip chick two thousand years ago, after all--is wondering if I am fully recovered from my operation.

  Chapter 1

  An Offer Not to Be Refused

  "Don't move! Just listen. You've got to get an agent, pronto!"

  Temple listened to the voice on the phone, still numb from the import of the previous call, one made to her, not like this one that she had made immediately afterward.

  "It's such short notice, though," Temple answered the urgency on the line's other end. "I'd been thinking about visiting you for the holidays--"

  "Don't think. You can hire someone to do that for you. This could be very, very big."

  "Not at one hundred and fifty a day."

  "That was last week. This is . . . this week. From what you said, they said, this is a whole new ball game."