by SM Reine
“You’re clever too,” I said.
“Well, it’s true. I’ve seen people hurt for the things that make them different. I’m a lesbian and that got me beat up twice, back in the day. I saw a lot worse happen to shifters by the government. There are still a lot of mundane mortal humans who’d have a go at an Ard child if they caught them alone.”
“Humanity is terrible, yes. It was a vampire that killed Azoic Kanen, though. There is no protection from someone who wants to hurt me. I will not live inauthentically for the illusion of a shield,” I said.
She stopped and stared at me. “Huh. Where’d that insight come from?”
“Being a cat means much time in idle contemplation. I had difficulty sleeping last night. Also, I’m a very clever—”
“I heard you the first seventy times. Maybe you’re right.” She took her hat off, fanned herself with it. “That’s the hard part of immortality. I’m a snapshot of the woman I was when I died, biases and all. I’ll stop trying to make you act like something you’re not.” After a thoughtful pause, she added, “I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing to apologize for. I’m having such fun with you.” I darted ahead to pounce a toad. “I’ve been very helpful with the investigation. Haven’t I, Sheriff? I’m so very—”
I was cut off by a hand grabbing me by the scruff. I was yanked off my feet, the dress’s collar biting into my throat, words reduced to gargling. My swipes were ineffectual.
Miss Draconia had descended upon me silently.
I was seized. “Put me down! How dare you?!”
“Well, well, well, speak of the Devil herself,” Gwyn said, loudly enough that her voice rang clear over my useless protests. “I was just coming around to arrest you for murdering Azoic.”
“I expected you would do something like that, you crusading little snit,” Miss Draconia said. It was strange to hear someone talking down to Gwyn. It seemed blasphemous, in a way.
“You should have faced consequences for Azoic Kanen fifty years ago, and you know what happens now: either you willingly submit to the Oracles or I kill you with the authority vested in me as Haven sheriff.”
“Authority.” The vampire mimicked the word in a nasally tone. “You’ve dedicated your entire undead life to making me miserable over a petty little grudge!”
Gwyn’s patience seemed to be fraying. She looked as angry as when she’d been pulled off Miss Draconia the night before. “Nobody’s allowed to cast blood magic in Haven without securing a permit first. You knew you were up to something risky. All that smoke was presenting a public health hazard—”
“We’re immortals.” Miss Draconia shook me gently and I began thrashing anew. “Most of us.”
“Visiting mortals have a right to safety, and immortals have a right to see their mortal family. I had to report unauthorized blood magic to the HOA.”
“It’s my home and I can do what I want inside of it!” Miss Draconia snarled.
“Oh, that’s your argument? You took cuttings from my rose bush without asking. I know you broke into my greenhouse to steal those sprouts. You’ve got no respect for my property like you’ve got for yours!” Gwyn seemed to completely snap. “And you never share your yarn with me even though you know how impossible that is to import!”
Miss Draconia was strong for such a lean lady. She shifted her grip so that she could slam my back against the rear wall of a house.
It didn’t hurt, but I didn’t like it. My bare feet were clawless. Rabbit kicking did no good.
“Stop! Put him down!” Gwyn demanded.
Miss Draconia bared her vampire teeth. “Why should I listen to you?”
“He’s a child. Just a little kid.”
I’d have protested that I wasn’t “just” a “little” anything, but I could not speak. I couldn’t even mewl. It was getting difficult to breathe.
“Everyone starts as a child. They grow to adults, and then they age, and then they die.” Her fingers tightened, and I squeaked. “Azoic Kanen was a predator. He drank human blood on Earth. He had no right to being in the Haven—a place of strict nonviolence.”
“You should have reported him.”
“I tried, but they said there was no proof. Furthermore, they insisted that he hadn’t hurt anyone in Haven, so he presented no current danger.” She scoffed. “I saw Azoic Kanen drink straight from the femoral more than a few times. The man was a classic Dracula. If he hadn’t taken advantage of his authority in the Haven while working with the Librarians, then it was only by chance. A predator is always a predator.”
“Sounds like you’re projecting.” Gwyn knuckled back her hat. “Put the kid down and submit to extradition, or else.”
“I’m not going to submit to any fascist’s idea of justice. I’ll be leaving of my own volition, returning to my old home on Earth where the neighbors have a little more taste.”
Gwyn pulled out her giant wooden knitting needles. They were the closest thing to a weapon on her body.
The fight last night had been violent enough without weapons.
I suddenly realized it was possible I might actually get hurt.
“I’ll give you to the count of three to put him down,” said the Sheriff.
“You can’t make me.” Miss Draconia began backing away, my body snapped against hers by that one firm arm. She smelled of rose perfume and chocolate chip cookies. “Don’t come for me. I’ll break your little nephew in half over my knee and suck all his glittering blood before you—”
Something hard struck us from behind. In her surprise, Miss Draconia dropped me.
I fell to the hard-packed dirt path in the garden. My bottom struck the ground first, and very hard. It made me squeak when I bounced.
After the squeak came a burp.
The Ring of Bau popped out of my mouth.
I twisted in midair and landed from my bounce on four small paws covered in black fur. Suzy’s white dress fluttered around me in huge folds. It felt as though I were in a circus tent. The slimy little Ring of Bau sat before me, almost as big as my head, and I wondered how I’d eaten that in the first place.
My body was once more feline.
It only took a moment to accept this fact and pop out through the neck hole. I looked up in time to see that Miss Draconia was impaled on Gwyn’s knitting needles.
If I’d still had a human face, I would have been gawking. The red-robed Librarian, Onoskelis, had snuck up from behind and shoved Miss Draconia, thus ensuring that she would be killed upon a pair of makeshift wooden stakes.
Now Miss Draconia was dissolving, halfway to ash, while Gwyn watched with grim resolve.
“Looks like I get all your yarn now,” said the Sheriff. “Justice served.”
Miss Draconia fell to dust.
10
Aunt Gwyneth
The Librarian exchanged words with Gwyn once the vampire was naught but dust in the wind, and what came out of Onoskelis’s mouth was wildly different than ran through her skull.
“That was a fortunate accident,” the Librarian said dispassionately.
We did well today. Balance has been restored by our swift action. She sounded even more pleased than I felt whenever given a bowl of tuna by Izzy.
“I could have gotten her back to the Oracles if you waited,” Gwyn said.
“Still, a fortunate accident.” The red-cloaked animal turned to stroll back to the road.
As for me… Well, as soon as Gwyn realized my dress was on the ground, she dropped to her knees and started searching around the dusty garden. “Mr. Poe? Where’d you go, pumpkin?”
I slunk out from under the blackberry bush, belly low, nose extended. She held still so that I could sniff her fingers.
“Shoot, I forgot how tiny you are,” she said.
I nuzzled her head with my hand. We solved a murder today.
“Yes we did,” Gwyn said, and then her eyes got wide. “Wait. Did you just—”
I am a very clever, very handsome, very perfect psychic kitten, I informed her.
She gave a low chuckle. “Nothing worse than a spoiled cat gone sapient. And you can tell Cèsar I said that, next time you see him.” She scooped me into the crook of her arm and gave a nice long pet along my spine. “You can go home now you’re a kitten again.”
I will not chew anything else, I promise, I said.
She stooped to pick up Suzy’s dress. The Ring of Bau tumbled out, so she picked that up too. Gwyn peered at it closely. “I’m afraid I don’t know enough about artifacts to make a guess and a half about this. I think there might still be a couple of stones in your belly, though. It’s got empty brackets. We might want to check your litter box for the next few days.”
I’ll leave that to the experts. I had so many naps to catch up on after my exhausting time as a bipedal noncat thing.
Gwyn’s house was closer than mine, so she took me there to towel off all the dust. I even submitted to a bathing. The idea of licking Miss Draconia into my system was wholly unappealing.
With the help of a very fluffy towel and a blow dryer, I remained comfortably warm.
Shortly after my bath, while I was still enjoying a nap in Gwyn’s lap, the Sheriff took a phone call. I dozed without listening in. She woke me by rolling one of my paws through her fingers.
“Suzy says she’ll be home tomorrow,” Gwyn said. “I told her you escaped and will be here with me. You can sleep at the foot of my bed tonight.”
I purred loudly in agreement.
We slept restfully in a community with one less murderer in it.
Suzy arrived early in the morning indeed. I’d barely gotten through my stretches when she knocked on the door.
“Hey love,” Gwyn said. She took Suzy into her arms, and they kissed the way that my mummies kiss. I had to assume that this was simply what noncats did with their mouths. There was a lot of mushing and smacking.
“You wanna tell me how you ended up with Izzy’s kitten at your house?” asked Suzy, stroking her fingers over Gwyn’s braids.
I stared at Gwyn from the windowsill, every inch tense except for the very tip of my tail. I could not keep it from shivering. Was she going to spoil my secret? Would she tell my mummies that I was no longer the kitten they loved, but a cursed mutation?
Gwyn gave Suzy a squeeze and released her. “Think you guys left a window open. He just came mewling on my doorstep.”
“Sorry about that,” Suzy said.
“It was no trouble at all.” Gwyn’s warm eyes seemed to sparkle. “Y’all can drop him off with me any time you’ve gotta travel. He’s a good boy. Aunt Gwyneth will always be happy to keep him.”
I was already purring when Suzy scooped me into her arms. I bumped my head against the underside of her chin, rubbing my smell all over her, since she reeked of distant places. I had missed her. I think she missed me too because she nuzzled me back while Gwyn was watching, and she never nuzzled me when people could see.
“Let’s go home, Mr. Poe,” said Suzy. Her wings arched over us, sheltering us from the breeze and golden pseudo-sun as we stepped out into another perfect day.
Afterword
When I began writing this book in 2018, I named the little boy kitten after my very real cat, Poe. She was a lady and a queen. She was my best friend. By the time I edited this book in March 2019, Poe had died of cancer. That makes it a weirdly sentimental April Fool’s joke for me.
Mr. Poe is named in her honor because Poe-poe Kittyface raised every other cat I’ve owned. She mothered four younger kitties in my household. She set boundaries by beating them when beatings were deserved and washing their butts when buttholes got poopy.
This is the first book I published without her.
I hope you enjoyed my 2019 April Fool’s joke. Ever since April 1st, 2012, I’ve been pretending to announce a new book each year, posting the cover and blurb on my website. The vast majority of them are animal jokes: promising to write entire books about Elise’s dog Ace, or turning Elise into a kitten, etc.
Last year I actually wrote a picture book and illustrated it myself, which means it’s bad. I had great fun with that. A lot of my readers did too. I immediately resolved to actually write a goofy animal book, and that’s what you just read.
Despite its brevity and extreme silliness, I made a sincere effort to write a cozy mystery that fans of the genre could enjoy. With all my usual morbid/gay/surreal twists, of course.
Yes, this book is canon.
Yes, literally everyone in this book is gay, polyamorous, a polyamorous gay, or a kitten-to-human shapeshifter.
Yes, Mr. Poe will be back.
Happy reading.
~ Sara
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