Off Leash Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
I hunkered down, digging my claws into the floor. A tiny voice in my head shrieked about my rental deposit. "I'm not joining the TAU."
"Oh, kitten, we actually get that a lot from ex-humans." A new, sultry voice came from the prettiest cat I'd ever seen as she waltzed in from the bedroom. Her fur, pure white fur framed and ice blue eyes that froze my gaze onto hers.
"W-who, uh, are you?" My tongue felt loose, as if the speech spell was slipping off as the white cat strutted closer.
"I'm Cyndi," she purred, pressing herself against my forelegs, sending my entire body prickling with heat. "I'm TAU's regional representative. The boots on the ground, so to speak. How do you do?" she asked, encircling my paw with her long, very elegant, very attractive body, with a soft tail that just brushed the underside of my chin. I felt like a thirteen-year-old who suddenly found himself locked in a closet with a naked supermodel.
Rudy's chattering laughter broke the spell. My eyes strayed up from Cyndi to find the squirrel on his back, convulsing with laughter. "You should see your face!" He sobered for a brief moment to do an impression of me, hanging his tongue out the side of his mouth while widening his eyes so far that I could see the whites of his black beady eyes. "Oh, Cyndi!" He clasped his paws together and sighed before collapsing back into his laughing fit.
My ears started to burn as my brain replayed the last few moments. Cyndi made a mew of protest as I jerked my forelegs away from her and scooted backwards down the hallway until both her and Oric were in my field of vision. Cyndi, still pretty, looked put out and made a show of grooming her paw. "Sorry," I said, not entirely sure of what I was apologizing for, as I mentally tried to stuff many thoughts I had about her back into mental boxes that I should not possess. I was human, temporarily in the body of a cougar. Even so, a house cat should be on the menu, not someone you imagine eating spaghetti with like Lady and the Tramp. I tore my gaze off Cyndi and fixed my eyes on Oric. "What business?"
"Well, it's more of a question really," the owl said as if he was reading from a long memorized script. He craned his neck towards me and tilted his head a disconcerting ninety degrees. "And the question we need to answer is: Who are you?"
"What the hell is this? Some sort of life-affirming seminar?"
"The question is a little rhetorical. But the fact is you are not the man who dwells in this house." He opened his wings and gestured to the space around us. "This space is really not your work."
My lips were threatening to curl up from my teeth. "What the hell are you talking about?" I gestured at the bookcases next to the TV. "I spent hours alphabetizing those books! See that dent in the couch? That was made by my buttocks."
"Point is, and I'm sorry, Thomas, the man you remember being is dead. He is gone forever."
I opened my mouth to protest when a very warm body pressed up against my side and circled around my rump, making sure to step on the base of my tail, sending shivers up my spine. "Think about it, kitten, think about the man you were. Would that man really have run out on Sabrina? Would he have had the guts? The Veil doesn't swallow humans of action. All that bravery in the face of the unknown? That's not the man, that's the cat." She was so warm, her voice so smooth, that my anger slipped away like melting ice cream between my fingers. "And you make a much better cat than a man--strong, handsome." She twisted herself around me, looking up at me with those deep blue eyes. "You'll be well loved, Thomas. We will find the perfect person to take care of you. All the meat you can eat, and a personal groomer so you don't have to taste where you've been every day."
It didn't sound so bad when she put it like that. Maybe she'd even come to visit me--she was so pretty with her bluish fur. Everything would be all right if I made her happy. But Angelica. Angelica would miss me. "I can't go," I protested meekly. "My mat- my girlfriend."
"Don't you worry about her. We take care of everything. Give your friends a story--let them grieve." My gaze drank in her beauty, and Angelica fell from my mind. How could anything else hold a candle to this creature, glowing with her divine blue light? My muscles soaked in her warmth like dry sponges as she entwined herself further around my front legs. "Now, are you ready to go, kitten?" Something small and red fell onto the little goddess's back, trailing a thin wisp of sizzling smoke. I looked at it.
Bang! Pain exploded along in my head and then paws as the ground slammed into them. Danger! Danger! That other voice screamed in my head and seized control of my limbs, launching me into the bedroom, propelling me over the bed and pressing my body flat against the floor. Wherever this body had come from, it certainly did not like loud bangs.
"My fur!" Cyndi's voice screamed across the house. The acrid scent of singed fur followed a feline yowl. "I'll kill you, rodent!"
"Woah! Hey now!" Rudy shouted as a hollow thump echoed, followed shortly by the scrabble of claws and several angry yowls.
"Cyndi!" Oric hooted as I poked my head over the bed just in time to watch Rudy dashing into the bedroom, the white cat hot on his tail, a blackened spot on her back and murder clear in those ice blue eyes. Rudy zigged to the left with a bound and then zagged, the same move that he used on me not fifteen minutes ago. Cyndi turned but didn't follow the zig--she adjusted for the zag, barreling right at Rudy, her claws outstretched.
She missed. Rudy twisted his body at the last moment and her paws shot under him, his body rolling up her forelimbs. Her face smashed into the Zippo on Rudy's chest with a surprising loud smeck! Rudy shot under the bed, a fuzzy cannonball, while Cyndi somersaulted head over tail. She came up snarling, her intentions clear as she prepared for another pounce.
"Cyndi, stop this at once!" In a flash of purple Oric appeared in front of the enraged cat, wings spread to form a wall between her and Rudy.
"Out of my way, Oric!" Cyndi hissed, and then sneezed out a fine red mist onto the floor.
"This is not the way to conduct a recruitment! I told you to stick to the rules! No charms." His head rotated 180 degrees to flash me a nervous smile. "I do apologize for Cyndi's behavior. And Rudy, please put the lighter away; I'd like to keep what remains of my hearing."
Cyndi's eyes narrowed, her rage focusing entirely on owl. "You double-crossing mite-ridden meat sack."
"I'm afraid I have to put you back on probation, Cyndi, for unethical behavior."
Cyndi leapt at him with a sawing hiss. Yet the fight ended before she landed. In a blink, Oric disappeared and reappeared directly above the cat. One taloned foot seized her by the scruff, and the other slammed her head into the floor.
She let out a low mrowl of pain.
"Cyndi, you should know better than this. You're lucky you're small enough for me to pin, otherwise I'd have to rip out your eyeballs." Oric spoke in the tone of a bored waiter listing the specials. "I'm very sorry, Thomas, for this breach in professional decorum. We'll have to table our conversation for a later time. Adieu."
With a very soft pop, he disappeared, taking his companion with him, leaving a faint purple afterimage in my vision. I blinked it away with a growl of disgust. That was the TAU?
Rudy emerged from under the bed with the soft click of a closing Zippo. "Well, that went about as well as I thought it would when the TAU made her an officer."
My head was in a total jumble, still grappling with the idea that the pretty cat had been screwing with my mind, and I couldn't be sure everything still worked. A part of me still craved the little cat's warmth. "What the hell did she do to me, Rudy?" My voice was a whisper.
"Oh, she hit you hard with her little trick."
"She had me wrapped around her little finger, Rudy. That hardly qualifies as a trick. I didn't think familiars could do magic."
"It's not magic--it's more a talent, like magi and their anchor. They called Cyndi's former master the Mind Twister before she kicked the bucket two years ago. If you're with a magus for a while, you pick up a few tricks of your own. It ain't predictable, and it ain't even always useful. Have you heard about O'Meara's first familiar, Rex, the one who got himself executed by the council of Merlins?"
"Uh, no."
"It's a sad story, bro. Anyway, his talent? His dog breath was so bad it ignited flammable stuff. O'Meara had to get him a fireproof bed. That was it. No fireballs, no gout of flame, just a little flick of fire if he wasn't paying attention. I slipped a string of firecrackers under his nose once." Rudy tittered with the memory. "Oh, man, did he yelp."
I hoisted myself up onto my feet with an eye roll. "While that is certainly illuminating, I already knew you had a sadistic streak, Rudy." My stomach had begun to recover from the shock, and Rudy's scent stoked the burgeoning hunger in my belly. I meandered back towards the kitchen.
The squirrel followed, still prattling at me. "Anyway, I couldn't let those two take ya like that. I'd never ever get paid that way. If the TAU brings you in all on their own, they don't have to share any of the tass you collect. You're still Sabrina's claim even if she's too busy to come pick you up."
"She knows I'm here?"
"Well, if the old fossil had a cell phone, she would, but lucky you, she's barely mastered the telephone line so far. Electronics and the lightning lady don't get along."
"So they don't know I'm here."
"It's kinda obvious that you'd come back here after you finished sulking. Where else are you going to go? Live in the forest? The deer would die of laughter with your pouncing accuracy." Rudy gestured to the shattered cabinetry as I pawed open the fridge.
"Har har." I dug into the refrigerator, looking for survivors of this morning's rampage. Not being able to go to a grocery store alone would drive me back to Sabrina's within a few days if I couldn't find a way to restock my meat supply. I looked at up at Rudy, perched on the top of the fridge. I might have licked my chops.
"Holy Walnuts, Thomas, eat something. That look of yours is making me twitchy. Even more than the stink of this place usually does."
"You can work a keyboard, can't you?"
Rudy turned his head to stare at me with one black eye. "Yeah?"
"Sabrina owes you an iPhone for watching me, right?"
"Yeeeeaah?"
"Look, I can double that."
"I'd love to see where you keep your wallet. Are you secretly a kangaroo?"
"No! Look, Thomas Khatt is still a legal entity. You can use my laptop. Help me make my rent payment that's due in four days. I have a few stock funds that my parents set up that I've managed not to tap yet. If we cash those out . . ."
The squirrel's tail drooped as I continued to plead, trying to find some way, any way to hang on to my human life. He shook his head sadly. "And what happens when your girlfriend comes back? What you gonna do? Stand on your hind legs and say the whiskers are a fashion statement? Thomas, the Veil don't work like that. You're on one side or the other, and you're on this side. It sucks. Most magi are either greedy horrible people or insane, especially the few in this town. When Oric comes back, walk to the TAU under your own power. He'll be eager to sweep Cyndi's charm attempt out back and bury it under a tree. Then you got a halfway decent chance of getting a newbie who's not spoiled."
I didn't have much to say to that other than to growl grumpily. There had to be a different option. There had to be.
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This is the end of the sample I'll be posting publicly if you want more, drop me a note or buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Off-Leash-Freelance-Familiars-Book-ebook/dp/B011J9L5JA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436843535&sr=8-1&keywords=dan+potter+off+leash