The cat jumped onto its paws. It slanted its head to the side a bit and blinked slowly. Then it began again to scamper around in a frantic circle, spinning again and again and again until it finally somersaulted.
“Forgive me, saliq!” cried the cat, sitting up with a dazed look. “I . . . I say . . . I began to feel Allah in me. I do go on sometimes! Even the Shayk has said so. He says I am too emotional. I am a drunk Sufi. Understand: there has been much destruction in my world, in the secret Islam. My brothers and my sisters, we used to range from the Hindu Kush to the Caspian Sea to Morocco and everywhere between. But the Salafists, and the Wahhabis, and all their tyrants, with their nerve-bombs and fatwas and self-righteousness, they too, saliq, are part of the death cult, the Heaven’s Gate. And they are all part of a larger Luciferian invasion. We must stop them.”
Muezza pointed toward the sky, extending a little pale-pink claw to the east of the zoo, and for the first time, Cuthbert saw the comet Urga-Rampos. It was vast—a glistening spill of cream rubbed fuzzy, but twice as bright as Sirius. It had two great arms on either side, like an airplane with swept wings and a huge contrail. And it was suddenly all too clear (to his spiring brain, at least). No question. That’s an alien spacecraft.
“Oh, bloody Jay-sus,” said Cuthbert. “It’s really there! I must go. You’re right, about the comet at least.”
“Yes,” the cat said. “It’s a sign. A new dark age is upon us—a long night of evil, ruled by Luciferian hands—and there will be no one trustworthy to bear the news. They are coming to London—but where? That I know not. I have heard that their death machines, made of living concrete, are already here, disguised as buildings. And we cats, of the Inner Way, we must hide in the hills—even the nomads, our old friends, will imprison and sell us to certain deaths, things have become so bad.”
“It’s clear that this new world, well, it won’t be one I can cope with,” Cuthbert said sadly.
Muezza said, “There is a way, saliq. In this England of tomorrow, it’s true: you will need your wits. You will need intelligence. You will need claws. You will need grace. You will, in short, need to be, erm—you will need to be a cat. So you have nothing to worry about, do you?”
The cat chuckled a little, and added: “But I am your fated friend. That’s the difference. I know things. You could learn much from me, brother. For example, I get all my moisture from kills. Impressive, eh? It’s all the liquid I need. Does that make you realize something?”
The cat took on a shy and unctuous expression, and looked down. “I do not drink. Because I have been removed, by you, from the care of my keeper—and praise Allah for that—I can only survive if I kill rats. They are abundant in London—praise Allah, again. But I do not drink, saliq. You could learn from me. I am like a camel, only I am not stupid and ugly and malodorous.”
Cuthbert said, “You’re a sober Sufi.”
“I am the Truth, brother,” said the cat. “And you are, too. You, al-Mahdi of beasts, the green saint, the herald, will save us from captivity and destroy the Enemy, and through you will come a new Messiah—the Otter Messiah. We are together this night because all the animals of the earth depend upon it. Your brother, this emir you love, he depends on it, too, I suspect. We are in the Animal Moment. My mythology is your mythology. My green eyes, they belong to this Green Man of England. And in the desert, where we call him al-Khidr—the Green One. Al-Khidr, the one who helps the Sufi wanderer, who carries our desert secrets, just as you carry your forest Wonderments. You have been praying to your Green Man, the saint of the otters, of seabirds, of the holy island. He is your only true British saint—so, but follow the clues. Don’t you see them? Your otters—what are they? They are Britain’s cats! Nothing more, nothing less. The Green Man looks at you, he sees you, even now. He will take you over if you open your heart. You will see. Light will slash across the night sky, and you will see your destiny. Wait until you visit your Shayk!”
Muezza’s eyes were in fact gold-green, Cuthbert saw when he looked carefully. A careless observer would call them gold.
“I don’t think your eyes are quite what you think,” Cuthbert said, unswayed by Muezza’s metaphysical blandishments. “And aren’t Britain’s true cats . . . its cats? We have thousands of them, you know. Millions, maybe.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right—no cat should be overlooked. It’s just that the otter in England, the otter is most noteworthy—and most excellent. The otter is truly sacred. I swear to you: on the soul of your St. Cuthbert, the soul of your grandmother, the souls of all the good people who have ever died on this island, and—”