Night of the Animals(122)

the lions warn st. cuthbert


CHANDANI AND THE THREE OTHER LIONESSES stalked the central court of their dirty enclosure, cutting back and forth like tongues of blown fire. They looked enlivened by the return of Cuthbert, but angry, too, to be stuck. The haggard male, Arfur, sat in their midst with his paws extended, as smugly inert as they were uneasy. As for St. Cuthbert, he was tired. He felt the stumpy-legged daze of fading Flōt. There was, again, that peculiar, disassociated sense that the entire night was unreal. He leaned up against the main wall of the enclosure.

Behind the enclosure, the gathering lights of dozens of emergency gliders set the lime trees and hazel shrubs and ivy banks aglow like green lamp shades of all sizes and sorts. The entire horizon burned with yellow and blue radiance, and the two colors, striated through the shrubbery, combined into a distinctive emerald green.

Since Cuthbert left them earlier, the lions had also caught glimpses of the Neuters, and instinctively, they recognized them as a somewhat detestable prey for the hunt—but prey indeed.

“I said I would return,” St. Cuthbert was telling the great felines.

“The hour’s late,” said Arfur, shaking his great, tawny head. “Let us out, holy man. The Gate—the Heaven’s Gate—is soon to open.” Arfur jumped to his feet, and he continued: “One side is here, beside us, somewhere in the zoo, and the other is somewhere south—near Grosvenor Square, we are told. Once the Gate opens, it will destroy us all. We must stop it!”

“Calm down,” Chandani instructed Arfur, approaching the old male with a limber, menacing gait. “It’s almost late.”

“Late? Or early?” said St. Cuthbert. “It must be three in the morning. And I still . . . I’m not sure. I know what will happen. Or I know what’s supposed to happen. And if you’re free, I will surely be the first to die. I am still waiting for him—for the Christ. Of Otters.”

“Ha!” scoffed Arfur. “I would’ve thought that a saint cannot perish.”

Chandani snarled at Arfur. “Show respect,” she said. “This blessed man can help us.”

But Arfur held his colossal paws up toward the huntress, baring pinkish-yellow claws. He threw his head back. “While Rome burns, you and this old man are talking about otters?” The other three lionesses sneered at Arfur. St. Cuthbert feared a fight was about to erupt.

“You say,” St. Cuthbert asked Arfur, trying to understand, “that the second part of the Gate, that it will appear . . . at Grosvenor Square? Why? Near the American Embassy? And we’re beside the first part—here, in the zoo? That bit makes sense, of course. But ah wouldn’t have said Grosvenor—never that. Are you sure?”

“Grosvenor, it is,” Chandani said in her low, sweetleather voice. “Already, we feel the invasion under way, holy one. Not American soldiers, of course—but Americans nonetheless. Californian comet-worshippers. So many have laughed at them, but they will do real harm, and it won’t amuse anyone, and it—”

Arfur broke in: “No. No. No. No. No. Not since those dipsomaniacal French felons landed at Fishguard has British soil been under the feet of invaders—but now look. We English lions, you surely know—our blood would boil if even an Argentinian center forward stepped into Wembley. So—”

Chandani interjected: “What my husband wants to say is . . . we are under . . . quite some duress . . . now.”

Arfur nodded, looking satisfied. He said, “And I ask this: If you are a holy man, why will you not sacrifice something—or someone—for us, to stop the invaders? What are you waiting for? Where is this . . . Christ . . . of Otters? Mark my words: any great battle will end here, near us, the absolute omega of all earthly animal strife—where the lions live. Is anyone calling me the ‘Christ of Lions’?”

“Arfur!” Chandani scolded.

“Yes?”

“I must say,” said Chandani, “that the simpleminded Arfur is right about one thing. The equivalent of the Légion Noire* will come to us, and they will come here.” She added, with a noble note of recognition for a dreadful enemy, “We must face them, bravely, first with devotion, then with our paws. Here. But someone still must go down to Grosvenor Square, I am convinced. Perhaps—that is where your Otter Messiah will be needed most. And His prophet—you.”

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know,” said St. Cuthbert, filling with a new wave of self-pity. “This is all too much for me.” The lions’ paws suddenly looked to him like huge golden pastries. “A’m a Flōt sot, when it comes right down to it, and I doubt a’m going to be much of anyone’s miracle-maker or giant-slayer. Oi can’t even get me donnies on a seagull—and we’re only an hour from Southend.”

“Let us free,” said Arfur, “and you will have all the winged beings you will ever need. Indeed, a great eagle will carry your savior to you.”

Chandani rolled her eyes.

“I don’t want to see them,” said St. Cuthbert. “But I did hope to see my brother before I ‘shuffled off this mortal coil.’ And I can’t find Drystan anywhere. That’s all I really cares about. More than the animals—no disrespect meant. More than England. I need to see him, see? There’s summat I’ve got to tell him, right? My brain’s deceived me. Or the Flōt.”