Infiltrating G.A.T.O.

The Darkness

Even with his feline eyes, Sebastian couldn’t see a damned thing. They had locked him in the dungeon and probably threw away the key while they were at it. Sadly, his exaggerations were pretty close to the truth. He had wandered around his cell enough to sense the metal bars surrounding him with his whiskers. Being a cat definitely had a few perks when it came to utility.

He slumped to the ground and twitched his tail. Although he could probably slip between the bars of the cage, he wasn’t foolish enough to try after what happened to him last time he’d been in this house. It didn’t help that he could feel some magical energy coming off the bars.

Somehow in the pit of his stomach, he knew he wouldn’t escape this time. He had no idea what the room looked like since he remembered the crazy cat ladies shooting him with a tranquilizer and then he woke up in here. In fact, he didn’t know how long he’d even been with them. Poor Isadora had to be freaking out, but he hoped she wouldn’t come for him. The head lady had too many magical items on her side for his liking.

As though his thoughts summoned her, the door swung open and light poured through it outlining a tall slender woman with a cat wrapped around her shoulders. It had to be the craziest of the cat ladies. He blinked at the offending light and placed his paw over his eyes.

Sebastian slowly opened his eyes to peek at her. She had switched on a light in the room and Sebastian had to blink his eyes a few more times before they finally adjusted. Cinderblocks made up the walls of the room and the huge steel door was the reason why no light had gotten in. It looked like a vault door, and now that he thought about it, it probably had been one. Steel bars surrounded him with steel bars across the top. Small scratches formed hieroglyphic shapes on each of the bars. They looked like some sort of enchantment.

“I had thought you’d find a way to become human again by now, but I guess I should have known that you wouldn’t be able to overcome the power of Bastet,” the crazy lady said in her overly eerie voice as she reached back to scratch the cat’s head.

She paced in front of him, but the woman behind her drew his eyes. A tall woman with long black hair braided down her back and green eyes watched him without a flicker of remorse. Danielle. She’d grown up pretty, and Sebastian regretted not being able to watch her grow through her teen years but that’d been her choice not his.

“Hmm, you look well fed.” The crazy lady tapped her chin before focusing back on Sebastian. “Did the family you stay with know what you really are?”

Sebastian leapt to his feet growling and hissing at her. How dare she speak of them? He had gotten captured near the store, but he hoped she didn’t see who he had been with. As long as she didn’t know about Isadora, everything would be alright. He’d take whatever they gave him to keep her safe.

 The woman simply laughed at him. Sebastian wasn’t a violent guy, but right now he wanted nothing more than to scratch this woman’s eyes out. The cat on the woman’s shoulders jumped to the ground with her head held high. She walked over to the cage and swished her tail.

A low growl came out of Sebastian as he willed the cat to come inside of the cage. The cat sat down right outside of it and started licking her paws and back. The bratty little thing was taunting him! He hissed to get her attention, but she continued on with her bath. He would not let her bait him into reaching outside of the cage.

“You know, when that handsome brown-haired young man came to our headquarters with a picture of you, I couldn’t believe our luck.” She turned to look at Danielle. “Could you? I’m just pleased it worked out as well as it did.”

Danielle shook her head. A shiver went down Sebastian spine. It had to be Caleb, but why would Caleb want him gone? It did make sense now, especially since Caleb never really liked him. Well, to be more accurate, Sebastian tormented and tortured Caleb every time he came over to the house.

With a heavy sigh, the lady stroked her hair out of her face before scooping up her cat and wrapping the cat around her shoulders. A small bookshelf stood in the corner with various bags on it. She gestured for Danielle to go towards it. When Danielle got there, she grabbed an old yogurt carton and filled it with some dry cat food, which she handed to crazy lady number one.

“We can’t have you starving yet.” The creepy smile on her face had Sebastian crawling as close as he could to the back of the cage without actually touching it. “We have much better uses for you, don’t we girl?”

She turned her head to scratch the cat’s head and coo into her ear. The cat purred and rubbed her head against the lady’s cheek. After watching the sickening display for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, Sebastian wanted to vomit. He even had a few dry heaves, but with nothing in his stomach, he didn’t actually chock up a hairball. Now that he thought about it, he glanced around the cage and noticed one key thing was missing: a litter box. He hated them, but he’d rather that than the floor.

He wrinkled his nose at his surroundings, as the lady scoffed. “Be glad it’s so big. If I had known you’d still be a cat, I would have made it smaller.” She snapped her fingers and a small square shape glowed brightly near the bottom of the cage. “Although, I guess it won’t really matter what the cage is like with what we have planned for you.”

With a thrust, she threw the bowl of food into the cage. Food fell out of the bowl and skittered across the floor towards him. Another snap and the square glowed again. Just as Sebastian expected, some kind of magical barrier existed around the bars.

“I do almost feel bad for what we have planned.” Another wicked smile graced her lips. “Almost.”

With a yawn, Sebastian stretched and curled up in the back of the cage. He wouldn’t let her scare him. She probably didn’t have anything planned for him, and even if she did, she probably thought something like water would be torture. Crazy, crazy lady.

He could almost see the steam coming out of her ears at that point. It brought him an odd sense of satisfaction as he stretched backwards and purred while yawning again.

That’s when the strangest sensation ever came over his body. It felt as though his entire body fell asleep with pins and needles prickling him. He attempted to stand but his legs wouldn’t support his weight. His skin itched and with a shaky scratch of his back paw a chunk of his fur fell out. What was she doing to him?

“What’s happening to him?” Danielle asked, and for a split second, Sebastian could have sworn he saw concern in her eyes.

“I have no idea.” The eeriness in the lady’s tone had fled, replaced by confusion. “What time is it?”

Danielle pulled out her cell phone and glanced at the screen before placing it back into her pocket. “7 AM, why?”

“Shit. The sun is rising.” Sebastian would have laughed hysterically at the distress on the woman’s face if his body didn’t hurt so badly. She muttered to the cat, “It has to be Ra. It’s the only explanation, but what’s he doing with our toy?”

The cat growled and raised her hackles. What did she mean about Ra? If Sebastian remembered correctly from history, Ra was the Egyptian sun god. A wave of pain racked through his body and sent him sprawling on the ground as more black fur flew into the air around him.

Sebastian’s skin suddenly felt too tight and his muscles ached. His body curled into a ball and tried to stay in it while he convulsed in pain. Before he knew it, his hearing dulled and he felt a faint breeze brush against his skin. Wait, skin? Where had the skin come from? He opened his eyes to notice that while the colors in the room had brightened, his eyesight wasn’t quite as keen as it had been moments ago.

“Oh my.” The lady gasped and the cat growled loudly before hissing. “Why would Ra do that? He’s her father, doesn’t she have any idea? Well, go ask her!”

The cat hissed at the lady’s words. The lady was actually crazier than Sebastian had previously thought. She actually believed the cat could understand her. Sebastian snorted, which actually reminded him a lot of what he used to sound like. No, he wouldn’t get his hopes up, but then again, he wasn’t sure this was exactly the best time for this to happen. In fact, he knew it wasn’t. A cat could handle a cool prison cell floor much better than a human could.

With a deep breath and a shiver, Sebastian glanced down at his body, his now naked and very cold human body. Well, crap.